


Stranded on the Event Horizon

by NoContractTermination



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Voltron, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 16:12:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9665042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoContractTermination/pseuds/NoContractTermination
Summary: Taeyong had been skipping prom for four years in a row and was just trying to graduate from flight school without any unnecessary chaos. Apparently Taeil and his giant mecha-lion-weapon had different plans.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- This is only partly inspired by Voltron. It doesn't follow the storyline exactly.  
> \- The Dojae is just a side pairing, though the second chapter will be a PWP spinoff thing for them.  
> \- Ten and Mark are side characters.  
> \- Enjoy!

No one wanted to go look at weird space lights with Doyoung except for Doyoung himself. And maybe Jaehyun, too, but that was because he was a nerd, though he’d rather die than admit it. 

Nevertheless, here he was, walking leisurely next to Taeyong and whistling something vaguely country as they trailed behind Doyoung on the three mile hike out to the summit. Mark was probably already waiting there with the equipment— Doyoung had to call him out sometimes when he wanted to go stargazing because Mark managed the equipment room, but Mark was obedient to a fault. He just had to weigh whose wrath he’d rather suffer: Doyoung’s, or his teacher’s. Usually it came out that Doyoung was exponentially more frightening. So, on this clear night, they were the only four boys from the garrison not at prom. 

There were voices soft in the distance and a laugh, clear and full of life. "Yah, who’s this?" Doyoung yelled, huffing as he dragged himself the last few steps into the clearing. Jaehyun hid his snicker behind his sleeve, and Doyoung flipped him off.

"Oh, you’re here," Mark said happily. "It’s Ten from class. He just transferred here."

Ten, who was sitting on a nearby rock with his legs dangling off, had crinkly and sharp eyes like a cat but he looked nice when he smiled, like his whole face melted into a marshmallow. He was handsome and stylish, like someone who should definitely be at prom, but then again, they all kind of were. 

Doyoung flopped down next to the equipment box, an old metal rusting thing that had seen better days. Sometimes Taeyong liked to peel away the blue paint as he listened to Doyoung ramble on about space and weird conspiracy theories. He and Doyoung weren't _friends_ , they just kinda bickered in class. They hung out in different social circles, but when Taeyong needed solitude, Doyoung was always there. 

"You guys can go, you know," Doyoung said. He was setting up a telescope he’d laboriously carried on his back the whole way here while Jaehyun watched him from a distance, like he was intrigued but didn’t want to show it. Typical Jaehyun. "I just needed you to get the equipment for me. Lee wouldn’t let me have it for the third week in a row."

"Nah, I’m good here," said Mark, hopping onto the rock next to Ten and drumming his fingers on his knees. 

"Hyung, I thought we were just looking at things," Jaehyun said, though he didn’t sound angry.

"Well, that was before I started hearing weird noises on the radio this afternoon," Doyoung said smartly. 

"I’m honestly surprised you came with us," said Taeyong, leaning back on his hands. "You should be enjoying yourself at prom." The air was thin up here, spoiled with sediment and blowing around them in swirls. Even so, he’d never seen so many stars up close like this. Space was pretty huge.

"I hate dances," Jaehyun replied with a smug grin, looking exactly like the opposite of someone who would hate dances. He squatted down and reached for something in the equipment box before Doyoung swatted his hand away. "Besides, I’ve been every year. Gets boring after a while."

Doyoung made a point of rolling his eyes.

"So what are we looking for?" Ten said.

"Stuff," said Doyoung, seeming very much like he was looking for more than just stuff. 

Just then, the radio screeched a high whining sound, and everyone jumped. "Okay, _what_ the hell," Jaehyun said with a funny kind of shocked expression on his face.

"That’s what I’ve been hearing for days in my room," Doyoung said, looking up at the sky. The garrison was the only civilization for miles, so the sky from up here was a blanket of pitch black at night with a sheer curtain of stars draped across. The Milky Way even stretched around them sometimes if it was clear like tonight. 

"I feel bad for your roommate," Ten said upfront, and Doyoung glared. 

"For your new-ass information, prefects room alone," Doyoung muttered, and Ten nodded with an impressed frown. 

The whining got louder, mixed in with some static that also sounded fuller than usual, like something was trying to break in. "You actually came on an interesting day," Taeyong said to Ten. "Usually it’s just Doyoung talking about the same constellations we’ve seen over and over again."

"Okay, you mean _asterisms_ , and some of them are new," Doyoung said, not taking his eyes off the telescope. 

Being as passionate as Doyoung about something seemed like fun. Maybe that was why everything felt so mind-numbing here— maybe that was why Taeyong had purposely missed prom for four years in a row, except this was their last year and he still didn’t feel any sort of emotional attachment to this place or any of the people in it. He’d joined the garrison as a young, impressionable teenager with natural flying talent who was seeking some sort of direction in his life, and all he’d gotten out of it was a mild hatred for the human race and the reassurance that he was four years closer to the Sweet Embrace of Death. 

The static became intermittent at a precise rhythm, and Ten was tapping his feet to it. "I think it’s trying to tell us something," he said, and Doyoung rolled his eyes.

"It’s not _alive_ , Ten, it’s— wait." They all jerked up to look at Doyoung then while Taeyong busied himself by watching the sky. Doyoung was not usually surprised by things, though Taeyong was probably the only one who knew that about him. Still, they were all tense and the possibility of space happenings thrilled them. "There’s something approaching," Doyoung said in a low voice.

"What, like an animal?" Jaehyun said. "I learned martial arts. I can protect you," he said with a grin, jumping up like an excited puppy.

"Sit down, idiot," Doyoung snapped, waving behind him. "And be quiet. It’s something in the sky."

"Like a comet?" Mark said, his eyes wide.

"Um," said Doyoung. "Looked like it at first, but it’s more— holy shit. It’s coming in. And _fast_."

Jaehyun seemed disappointed. "Well, at least something is happening."

"Dude, why are you even here?" said Mark. "This is cool stuff."

"It would be cool," Doyoung interrupted. "If it weren’t headed right this way. I think we should get out of here." He didn’t budge from his spot in front of the telescope, though, which was just like Doyoung. He could sit and stare at the sun for days to follow leads for some rare cosmic event, even if it blinded him permanently. Taeyong thought it was brash and a waste of his otherwise fulfilling life. Doyoung insisted it was just a difference in the order of their priorities. "My life isn’t fulfilling, as you put it, because it just _is_ ," Doyoung said one time when they had been smoking weed and having a philisophical out in the courtyard at 3am. Come to think of it, that was actually prom night last year. "You have to _make_ it fulfilling." 

Space exploration was supposed to be fulfilling. It came with the prospect of becoming a hero and certainly had no problem attracting other students their age. Taeyong thought that after joining the program, he might just absorb some of that reckless enthusiasm through osmosis. According to Doyoung, life wouldn’t work out that way. And he was right; it didn’t. And now Taeyong just came out kind of jaded and cynical and hoping that this all was some weird mid-life crisis that would dissipate sooner or later.

The sounds were getting faster, like the background music to a thriller movie. For some reason, Taeyong’s heart was starting to pound in his chest. Still sitting, he looked up to something bright and definitely moving, as Doyoung said. The spot in the sky looked kind of like a commercial plane flying overhead, but flights rarely came this way and never at this time of night. The whining started to mix with the static, so rhythmic it was almost beeping. "Should we… move?" Taeyong said carefully.

"The chances of it hitting our exact location are pretty low," Doyoung replied, squinting behind his glasses. "Unless it’s targeting us directly. Which— the chances of that are low, too. But in case it comes in close, you might want to take cover."

"Aren’t you going to?" Jaehyun said.

"Are you kidding me?" replied Doyoung. "This is a once in a lifetime chance. I’m not missing it if it kills me."

Jaehyun shifted uncomfortably but didn’t move either, not one to be bested by courageous Doyoung. Mark jumped off the rock and wandered over to where Taeyong was sitting. "He’s like this every week?" he said, and Taeyong laughed quietly.

"This is, well, new," Taeyong admitted honestly. "Usually he knows exactly what’s going on."

Mark hummed knowingly. The light was brighter now and growing with every second. If it hadn’t been prom night, some of the students might’ve heard it too: the rumbling deep in your chest like the sound of military jets breaking the sound barrier, except it kept going.

There was a large basin in front of them under the summit with its own desert-like ecosystem. Gaping cracks dotted the ground; it never rained there because the mountains blocked all the clouds from getting through. Most of their fresh water was funneled from extraterrestrial lakes on planets outside their solar system. The thinking behind deep space colonization was that if they found it, it was theirs. That was how civilization had been running for ages, and Taeyong was powerless to fight against it. Fate decided who was in power, and those in power abused it. Then you’d go and follow orders, fight some things, die, and then get thrust back into the cycle of life.

Of course there were people and other species who resisted, too, but centralized revolution on earth had been hard enough; of the few successful revolutions throughout history, none were won without copious amounts of bloodshed and a great big deal of risk. With lightyears separating even the largest of the resistance factions, gathering everyone up in one movement and launching a scaled attack of any sort seemed pretty much impossible. There was always some sort of inane war going on, though maybe it wouldn’t be so inane if it were your own planet getting blown to pieces. At least it wasn’t him, then.

Sometimes resistance movements built big, grandiose weapons like Voltron, and other times they scattered their forces wildly into the universe and ended up shot down like sitting ducks. People like Taeyong and Doyoung and students at the garrison, they didn’t bet on inconsistency. They tested in and were there for the power, the glory, or just swept along for the ride. They were the strong, the smart, the ambitious, or they were Taeyong, who was… none of those. Maybe he was just lucky: lucky he was human, and lucky he could fly.

Taeyong almost didn’t hear Doyoung shout until a crash shook the ground under him, throwing Doyoung and all his equipment to the ground and scattering the rest of them and flooding the area in a thick cloud of rocks and dust and debris.

"Doyoung?" Taeyong called out, and Doyoung grunted in response. There was a vague shadow that looked a lot bigger than Doyoung in front of Taeyong as the dust cleared.

"Get the hell off me," Doyoung hissed, and Jaehyun, lying on top of Doyoung like a blanket, squawked when Doyoung elbowed him in the ribs.

"Is that how you repay me for protecting you?" Jaehyun said with a pout, rolling off of Doyoung, who immediately stood up and started brushing off his uniform and bending his glasses back into shape.

"You tackled me into the ground," Doyoung said flatly.

"What _was_ that?" Taeyong said, staring off into the distance. A large dusty vehicle about the size of the sciences building at the garrison greeted them, wedged into the ground at a slant. After a few moments, it groaned and rolled back upright, resembling some weird mix of the USS Enterprise and a multistory blimp. It looked like it had once been shiny, like aluminum or chrome, but had amassed quite a few dents and scratches in its travels through space.

"Looks like a ship of some sort?" Doyoung offered. "Either way, we should—"

"Explore!" Ten said out of nowhere, crawling toward them with Mark in tow.

"That is exactly the opposite of what we should do, but thank you for your unsolicited input," Doyoung said, squinting. Even with earth’s most sophisticated flight tech, they’d never send something that conspicuous and skeletal into space. It was like a mix of a satellite and a fighter jet, but not quite meeting the criteria to be considered either. "Could be an attacker or one of the rogues from the resistance movement. We should report them to the garrison and move on."

"Weren’t you the one who wanted to come up here in the first place?" Jaehyun pointed out.

Doyoung scrunched his face up. Rebels launching a direct attack on the garrison was unlikely, even at this distance and height. The ship might be shadowed by the ambient noise for tonight, but tomorrow, someone was bound to notice a giant metal obstruction in the distance. So unless the goal had been to look as conspicuous as possible, the chances that the ship had been sent full of rogue attackers were low, and it hit too far from campus to be an effective explosive. Doyoung _knew_ this, and his hands seemed to be twitching with mixed feelings.

"I… don’t mind if we explore a bit," Mark said in a small voice, shuffling his feet. "Just to, you know, get a closer look."

"Mark," Doyoung said sharply. "I thought you were with me here."

"He deadass snuck Lee’s most expensive equipment out of the room he was _in charge of_ to indulge your weird science boner," Jaehyun said. He tended to flip between class president and certified troublemaker, and tonight his prime goal seemed to be bugging Doyoung and having the time of his life doing it. "Anyway, it’s prom night. This should be an epic adventure. Once in a lifetime chance, you know. 'Wouldn’t miss it if it killed you'?"

"Touche," Doyoung muttered, trudging down to path Mark had carved out as he skated down the cliff on the sides of his sneakers. Ten followed him like a cat on the prowl.

And other than their low chatter, all else was quiet. No one checked on the noise; no one wondered where they were. It was the familiar feeling of solitude; Taeyong walked relaxedly, staring up at the sky as it ticked steadily above him toward morning. The sky never waited for you, so Taeyong followed along dutifully, swept along in the current. It was all he knew how to do.

—

"I hate you guys, and you are literally the worst people to explore a spacecraft with," Doyoung grumbled as they trudged through the dim hallways in a haphazard little group like a bunch of confused children.

Ten shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders up with a big, eye-curving smile. "Glad to be of service," he said.

They’d been wandering around for what seemed like hours but really had only been about 20 minutes, lost between walls that all looked the same as Ten got distracted by every little thing. He preened at the half-functional automatic doors, cooed at the handprint scanners, and gawked at the bright, cracked exit signs, which were all things that they’d seen hundreds of times as they circled the ship. Every noise Ten made ended up startling Doyoung near out of his wits; Doyoung was already on edge after doing exactly what their teachers and counselors always said _not_ to do: go near or touch the remnants of any extraterrestrial spacecraft, and Ten was just making things worse.

"We’ve been in this hallway already," Jaehyun said out of the blue, after they’d definitely been walking through that same hallway for a good three minutes or so.

"No shit, Sherlock," Doyoung said, and Taeyong snorted into his hand. Getting lost was probably the least of their worries: it didn’t look that big from outside, and with prom night happening, the teachers probably had more to worry about than a bunch of ragtag little nerds Gone Missing. Hearing his own voice seemed to ease Doyoung’s conscience, though, so on they went.

"I think this castle is still functioning," Mark said then, and Taeyong scrunched his eyebrows.

"Castle?"

Mark nodded. "The hallway lights make it kinda look like… a residence? Like a spacecraft, but also a home. Like someone used to live here."

After a few more spirals deeper into the ship, an area opened up to the right that was filled with what looked to be tables and chairs, all attached to the floor with fluid new-age architecture. It looked like a 1980s diner mixed with a hospital bathroom. It was weirdly reminiscent of the cafeteria at the garrison, only there weren’t any lunch lines or serving areas, and it was small, homey, and familiar. 

"Uh, guys," Mark said after a while, his voice raised. He’d wandered away in a trance as he tended to do, but it always seemed to lead him to surprising things that helped him succeed at pretty much everything he tried. "You might wanna come look at this."

He was hovering over a box-shaped-thing, kind of like the boxes faux Christmas trees came in, about the size of a coffin. It too was attached to the ground, built into the architecture of the place like someone planned it to be there all along. And when Taeyong bent over the lid, dusty from not having been touched for years, there was a person lying behind the glass facing back toward him.

"Holy _shit_ ," Jaehyun breathed, standing at the foot of the structure.

The boy who lied inside looked to be about their age seemed peaceful, as if he were having a pleasant dream and none of them had the heart to wake him. 

"He's breathing," Doyoung said, pointing at the way the glass in front of the boy's mouth fogged up every so often, and the way his hands, folded over his chest, rose and sunk like a tide. "He's alive."

The thing was, you couldn’t hit earth from space unless you were purposely aiming for it. It would be one thing if this were just a satellite or an unmanned weapon striking the earth after an aborted mission. Targeting earth with a spacecraft housing a single, unconscious person was weird; someone had to have been looking for them from somewhere far away. 

But who would be looking? They were just small specks of leftover stardust from when the stars got bored and couldn’t think of anything else to make. They were just five randomly plucked students of varying ages and specialties ditching prom to go stargazing. They were just tiny blips in the grand cycle of existence, and that was something they always had to remember in order to not get ahead of themselves. And now they were standing in this kid’s space-house, wondering whether or not its owner was alive. It felt almost intrusive, like they didn’t belong. But even if they wanted to back out now and forget everything ever happened, Taeyong had a vague feeling they couldn’t. He tightened his shoulders up to his ears and threw his hood over his head, blocking out the sides of his vision.

It felt like intruding because it _was_ intruding; they’d broken more than a few rules and social conventions to get up on that summit tonight. That was Doyoung and his whole _You have to make your life fulfilling_ spiel, but none of the other times Taeyong had hung out with him had resulted in anything exciting. Taeyong wasn’t free of blame himself, since he was the only one Doyoung would go stargazing with. He was boring as hell, though, so he had no idea why Doyoung stuck around. "You’re not boring, you’re just lazy," Doyoung always said, and Taeyong couldn’t be bothered to argue. It used to annoy Doyoung, but now he just argued with himself. "You’re just used to waiting for everything to come to you instead of going out to get it yourself." 

But at least he’d tagged along tonight. So maybe it was just a mixing of the right personalities at the right time, and a bunch of impulsive decisions none of them were brave enough to make on their own. 

Was this what it felt like being on the edge of something big, something _massive_? It was definitely unfamiliar, possibly due to the impending sense of panic started to set in. But it was still a feeling, something to anticipate other than the dullness of the daily grind. Taeyong stared at something fogged up by the dust on the surface of the box.

Ten was the first to talk. "So, does anyone know how to open this thing?"

"We’re opening it?" Taeyong said. 

"Why not?" said Jaehyun. "We’ve already come this far."

"Sunk this low, you mean," Doyoung said sadly, but even he sounded a little curious. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger, a nervous habit of his.

"It looks like it’s attached to the ship," Mark said, crouching down. "But other than that, there’s nothing sealing it shut. I think it’s something in the person’s system keeping him asleep like that."

"Or, you know, he could just be sleeping," Ten offered. "Like it’s nighttime and he just sorta. Lied down in there for a good night’s sleep. Keeps his skin clear."

Doyoung looked at Ten like he was made of doorknobs. Mark ignored him. "I think if we just," he started, folding his small hands around the top of the glass. His fingers left little prints in the thick layer of dust over top of it. And then, with a loud groan, the glass shifted.

" _Jesus_ ," Jaehyun said. Taeyong was beginning to wonder if Jaehyun was this easily moved, or startled, by just about everything.

"Yeah, that’s it," Mark murmured, a big satisfied grin stretching across his face. Jaehyun reached down to help him, and with the two of them muscling it out, the glass slid off easily.

Nothing visible steamed out. Now they could hear the boy, breathing easily, deep and refreshing like when you’ve been asleep for a long time. He looked somewhere between blissful and dead like that, dressed in an all white robe-smock kind of situation that went from the middle of his neck like a turtleneck down to his feet, and his hands were folded over his chest. That was what Taeyong had been staring so hard at a few moments ago unintentionally: the way the boy’s fingers folded over themselves as if he were at utter peace with himself, even though he was just a sleeping being in a vestibule doing nothing but taking up space. Taeyong felt a sad little ache and a simultaneous wave of admiration for this wee human from somewhere far away, with smooth skin and soft brown eyes, kind of lidded like he was tired and a little sad but also a little curious. He had beautiful eyes.

Wait. His eyes were open. 

They definitely weren’t open before. 

And they _moved_ , glancing for a moment at every single one of them standing over him, too shocked, or scared, or, in Taeyong’s case, a little shamefully awestruck, to move. 

Ten was the first to speak. Again. "Um, greetings from planet earth?" he said hesitantly, and Doyoung groaned despite himself. 

The boy opened and closed his mouth in wonder, which was dry and chapped and skin colored like he’d actually been dead. "Hi," he said in a raspy, soft voice. 

"Oh my god," Mark said, and Taeyong looked back and forth between the four others, looking for some kind of verbal cue, but no one met his eye. Probably on purpose.

The boy sat up then, and everyone jumped back a little when he moved. But he paid them little attention, seemingly focused more on trying to feel out his limbs and rubbing life back into them. "Um, are any of you pilots by any chance?" he said afterward, blinking a few times and looking at the circle around him, all gaping at him tensed and kinda shaking a little, as if he could jump up and eat them at any moment. Nevertheless, he remained calm and curious, eyeing them hopefully.

Doyoung looked at Jaehyun and then at Taeyong. "We’re— we’re all in piloting school, yeah," he said warily. 

The boy’s face lit up like that was the greatest news he’d ever heard. " _Wonderful_ ," he said happily. "Then you must know where the lions are?"

"The _lions_?" said Jaehyun. 

Taeyong had never seen an animal native to earth in his life before, probably. There were tons of pictures and holograms in the library references of course, but nothing living. What remained of the animal population was kept on reservations under strict government surveillance, and you had to be a pretty big deal to get permission to go in there. And they were way far from here, too, in a more inhabitable climate where things actually grew and there were plants and such. 

"The lions," the boy repeated. "We have to form Voltron."

After a dead sort of awkward silence, Doyoung was the one who snorted into his sleeve. " _Voltron_ ," Doyoung repeated flatly. "The resistance." 

There was another uncomfortable pause until Ten crouched down next to the boy with some amused curiosity and said, "Do you… know where we are?"

The boy shook his head slowly and looked around the room without any semblance of recognition for what should’ve been his own home.

"We’re in a university, on government territory," Doyoung said lowly. "We’re— we’re pilots training for deep space colonization, and Voltron is… "

"Voltron is the resistance," the boy repeated, and Doyoung looked at him expectantly.

No one knew exactly what the term _Voltron_ referred to or what the weapon actually looked like. Talk came up of a group of insurgent scientists and engineers building the thing every now and then, and some of the UN leaders had been trying to get their hands on blueprints for ages without much progress. So the notion of kid to come crashing down to earth in some weirdly engineered house and asking politely for volunteer pilots out of the blue was… "Aren’t you afraid?" Taeyong blurted out, and everyone turned to look at him. His voice came out raspy from disuse; he hadn’t spoken since they entered the ship.

"Of you?" said the boy with a sly little smile. "Not at all."

Taeyong squinted and ducked back under his hood. This kid wasn’t making any sense, and apparently Taeyong’s apprehension wasn’t welcome. "Do you have any idea what you’re asking of us?" Doyoung said.

But the boy wouldn’t stop staring at Taeyong. "I’m asking for your help," he said in a level voice, seeming to glare right through Taeyong’s hood, and his fringe, and all his carefully curated defenses. Taeyong shuddered a little and looked at the ground, suddenly dampened with a weird sense of defeat.

"Why us," he mumbled under his breath, but in the silence of the ship it came out louder than expected.

The boy’s shoulders slumped a little and Taeyong looked up instinctively catching the movement out of the corner of his eye. The boy’s sad eyes were back, making him appear peaceful and small again. "I don’t know," he said. "Nothing ever happens without a reason. I don’t remember."

"Wait, so you, like, don’t remember anything?" said Mark. "What’s your name?"

"Taeil," he answered easily. "I’m Taeil."

It was a pretty name. There was something pitiful about the way Taeil spoke, in broken fragments almost as if his mind were skipping back and forth like a record player. It was like there were multiple sides of him that he didn’t know, or rather didn’t remember, how to control. He was soft and warm and harmless until he singled Taeyong out; that was when he appeared to know more than he let on, and it was both uncomfortable and intriguing. Uncomfortable because Taeyong had never encountered anyone quite like this, and intriguing because it made him feel a skip in the back of his chest that he hadn’t felt since distant childhood, when he’d open presents on Christmas or sneak a peak at his parents’ newest gadgets. It was excitement, curiosity— passion. Taeyong stepped back to hide his flush, and Doyoung glanced at him for a moment knowingly. "Where are you from?" Doyoung said then, ignoring Taeyong for now. "Who sent you?"

"I— I don’t know," Taeil admitted. He looked down at his hands which were beginning to regain color. "I only remember that I’m Taeil, and I’m… looking for pilots to form Voltron."

"What about the lions?" said Ten, grinning sheepishly when Doyoung squinted at him. "I like animals."

"The lions form Voltron," Taeil said simply. 

"But isn’t it a… space weapon?" Jaehyun said.

"Made out of lions," Ten added. He sounded hopeful.

"Yes," Taeil replied. 

Ten smiled brightly. "Guys, let’s form Voltron."

"Okay, wait," said Doyoung, his hands shooting out in protest. "I couldn’t care less about what you bimbos decide to do with your lives, but— this is a kind of a big deal."

"So in other words, you do care," Jaehyun said smugly and Doyoung was near ripping him apart at the seams.

That was what this was: revolution, with bloodshed. A sense that something was going to happen that might change your life forever. A naive and impulsive decision, running away with strangers to defy the high ranks of the most powerful coalition in the universe. Literally throwing your life away. 

Injury was likely. Death, too. And yet the feeling of… _feeling_ something, or believing in something: that was what made people do things that brought about change. That was what made people fight. 

"One of the lions is located near here," Taeil suggested, looking back up at them. His gaze lingered on Taeyong like he knew that Taeyong was closest to breaking. 

Everyone had varying degrees of loyalty, ambition, and pure curiosity. That was what made people different from each other. Maybe it was just coincidence that the five of them ended up enabling each others’ greatest strengths. Not that they really knew each other, either. Doyoung in particular wasn’t really attached to his position at the garrison, but he had a case of paranoia that ran deep and held fast. If he was going to break the rules, he was going to do it carefully, efficiently, and _right_ , and Taeil was pretty much suggesting the opposite of all of those. Yet even he seemed a little drawn to this strange sense of camaraderie and not knowing what would happen next. That if they were going to challenge the very fabric of their lives, at least they’d be doing it together. 

Through a quick and frustrating game of 20 Questions, they ended up compiling a long and continually growing list of other Useful Things Taeil Didn’t Know: his family, his age, how long he’d been in flight, where the four other lions where, or more specifically how close the "nearby" lion was, or _why_ they had to immediately form Voltron, and so on. Taeil looked like he was growing more and more visibly dejected, and despite everything, Taeyong’s fingers were twitching in distress with the sudden urge to wrap Taeil up in a hug. Doyoung continued to grill Taeil and Ten poked at his side and touched his face, more interested in whether or not Taeil was even human.

"Guys, I think he’s getting tired," Taeyong said awkwardly after Taeil shot him a long, pitiful plea for help. Taeil’s grateful little smile made Doyoung’s wrath completely worth it.

"What should we do?" Mark said from his spot at one of the tables behind them. "The teachers are bound to find out about this thing soon, and— yeah."

They would probably take Taeil and put him in some psychiatric care. That was the best case scenario, but since Voltron was all he knew, he’d be taken as clearly working for some sort of rebellion, which was straight up treason. He’d be put in jail. Images flashed across Taeyong’s mind of Taeil, handcuffed to a metal bed that was chained to the ground, all alone in some cold, grey cell, cement on all sides, staring up at the ceiling and shivering, his hair matted to his forehead and dirt on his soft face and fear in his sad eyes, glowing feebly and welling up with tears. 

"Let’s go," Taeyong said suddenly, shaking his head out of his trance. 

"I agree," Doyoung said, surprisingly. Then he said, "Let’s go back to the garrison. And forget this ever happened."

"Oh, come on, hyung," Jaehyun said, rolling his eyes. "Even I can tell you don’t really want to do that."

Doyoung mumbled something unintelligible. "I meant go find the lion," Taeyong said. "It can’t be too far."

"Indeed, it’s right underneath this basin," Taeil said.

"And then we can go from there," Jaehyun said. 

Doyoung, who looked like he was about to punch someone in the face or jump off the nearest building, took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay, but are we just going to _dig_ it out?" he said evenly. "With our bare hands?"

"I might be able to help," Taeil said, looking down at his hands again. He twisted them around and observed his palms and the backs of his hands, which were all tendony and veiny, and Taeyong wondered what they felt like, if he were to touch them. He flushed again, and Doyoung who noticed everything, rolled his eyes. 

Back out under the vast, deserted sky, Taeyong checked the time. It was a little past ten— that meant the dance was still happening, and literally no one had any idea they were even gone. Taeil herded the five of them into a compact line in front of the ship’s entrance and told them to stay there and don’t come any closer. Taeyong was still in too much of a daze to really contemplate past Taeil walking a few years or so away from them and kneeling on the ground like he was about to perform some summoning ritual. "I think I can just…" he mumbled, his voice carrying across the basin. "It should be right about here."

And then he raised his right arm and punched through the ground. A large crack shot across the dirt, separating the cliff from a hollow cavern that opened up beneath it. But then Taeil was falling too.

" _Taeil_!" Taeyong heard himself shout, his legs moving instinctively before his mind had time to react. Just before Taeil dropped past the cliff, Taeyong lurched forward and grabbed his wrist, his body sliding across the hard ground and blowing dust up into his face. 

Taeil was looking up at him in surprise when Taeyong finally skidded to a stop, his own head and shoulders hovering over the cliff of the hole as he held Taeil. "Thanks," Taeil said softly, and Taeyong scrambled to help him up as rocks from the other side of the cavity Taeil had made crumbled into the hole below. 

"N-no problem," Taeyong said. Taeil continued to observe him curiously and beamed whenever Taeyong looked back at him, causing Taeyong to blush right up to his ears. This, of course, didn’t go unnoticed by Doyoung, who whistled as he walked by with the rest of them to get a good look at the hole Taeil had opened in the earth. Okay, so if he were chained up at an institution, he could probably break free. That settled Taeyong’s stomach but felt a little uneasy at the same time, like the contrast between Taeil’s stature and his strength were a little insulting to Taeyong’s masculinity.

"That," Taeil breathed, pointing into the darkness, "is the lion."

Taeyong could only see the top of its head; it was crouched down, the rest shadowed by the night. The metal was a magnificent blue, like pictures of the ocean in history textbooks. Where the moon hit it shined a brilliant cyan, reflective and polished, as if the shower of dust and rocks had simply passed straight through it. 

"How do we know which one of us…" Mark said, waving his hand awkwardly, "… you know. Is the pilot. Or how to get inside. Assuming you pilot it from inside, that is."

"Well, lions usually have two openings—" Ten started before Doyoung smacked him in the back of the head.

And all of a sudden the lion raised itself up, its eyes glowing bright as it moved fluid and quiet and not at all like an ancient, giant piece of machinery. Taeyong sucked a breath in. It was like walking into a national park or an old church for the first time and trying to take in how magnificent everything used to be. And the lion moved just like how you’d expect a lion to, its whole body woven together like real muscles, tensing up as it looked at them. It scrutinized them with an intuitive gaze that shouldn’t have been so _real_ , not from an inanimate weapon. Yet there it was, seeming to peer into Taeyong’s very soul, like his life story, mistakes and all, had been laid out on a storyboard for it to read. Taeyong had never felt more exposed. It was like someone had peeled off his fancy clothes and handsome face and trained muscles and left him, a skeleton of all his apathy and wasted years, to stand in front of the gate to heaven’s door, and God was laughing at him in the face. 

Taeil stroked his thumb across Taeyong’s hand, and then Taeyong noticed himself shaking, tense and holding his breath. Taeil was trying to comfort him. When the lion finally looked away, Taeyong let out a relieved sigh. 

"I think it’s trying to tell us something," Ten repeated like they were back on the hill just casually looking at the stars again. The lion’s head snapped up toward him, but unlike Taeyong, Ten seemed completely unbothered, like he had nothing to hide. He didn’t flinch and instead stared back; his gaze was kind and inquisitive, and he tilted his head curiously and reached forward toward the lion’s snout.

"Careful," Taeil noted, but his voice was without much urgency. Then Ten was petting it, as if it were already his.

"She likes me," Ten said brightly, and the lion nuzzled his tiny hand.

Jaehyun reached up as well, as slow as Ten, but then a bright blue translucent structure, kind of like molecules, knocked his hand back. The lion didn’t even spare him a glance. Jaehyun whined, shaking his hand. "Burns," he mumbled.

"It doesn’t let you in unless you’re the pilot," Taeil explained quietly. "Especially since it’s the first time."

"So it’s Ten," Doyoung mused, somewhat amazed. Doyoung was weak for that kind of stuff, seeing magic, or what he called science they hadn’t explained yet, happen before his very eyes. It was how they’d got up here in the first place tonight. Ten made a pleased noise as he faced the lion and reached up to rub in between its eyes, and its tail flicked back and forth happily, knocking rocks off the opposing cliff.

"It takes a fun-loving, adventurous individual to pilot the blue lion," Taeil mused just as Ten threw himself over the hard metal snout of the lion like he was jumping into his bed, and it lifted him up into the air. 

"Where are the others?" Taeyong asked, and Taeil looked up into space. Taeyong followed his gaze. Taeil was looking at the Milky Way, or even somewhere past it. "Out there?" said Taeyong.

"Somewhere," Taeil replied with a nod. "The castle should be able to tell us."

"So what do we do," Mark said again, his hands in his pockets as he watched Ten. Doyoung and Jaehyun turned to Taeyong, and Taeyong instinctively glared back at them.

"Why is it my call?" he snapped.

"You’re the one who wanted to find the lion," Jaehyun pointed out. Doyoung for once agreed silently. 

Taeil seemed to be observing this interaction expectantly. In a way he was not unlike the lions with how he watched them, especially Taeyong, focused on his body language and his every movement and the way he carried himself. "I was just curious," Taeyong said defensively. 

"Well, now Ten’s a pilot and we know Taeil is telling the truth," Doyoung said. He stretched his fingers back, seeming a little more relaxed than before. 

Doyoung’s brain was like a giant workstation. Everything had its own place, and whenever it was time to make a decision, the possible paths spread out in front of him for him to pick and choose at will. Taeyong’s was not at all like that; his mind seemed like an unintelligible blob of grey lacking any sort of will or inclinations. That was why he was so good at flight simulation and piloting: that was the only time he could rely on his body to operate on its own, and he didn’t have to think.

Then again, he’d never been a decision-maker— a leader— before, either. Leaders couldn’t have brains of mush. He wasn’t really suited for the role.

"We— I think we should find them," Taeyong said hesitantly, and Taeil smiled. "I mean, if no one really has anything better to do."

Doyoung snorted, and Jaehyun stretched his hands up above his head. "And then we can go from there," he repeated.

"You do know the implications of this," said Doyoung lowly, folding his hands together and twisting them around. 

"I mean, we’re already in it," Taeyong grunted. "No one’s forcing you to come too."

"Oh, I’ll go," Doyoung said, his nose turned up. "If only to keep you guys from blowing up before you even leave the atmosphere."

"Aw, that’s so sweet of you," Jaehyun replied with a big grin, only he kind of sounded like he actually meant it. Doyoung scrunched his nose up like a rabbit sniffing. 

They decided to sleep in the castle that night— it was easier than trying to sneak Taeil into the garrison on the night when the hall monitors would be most alert and the particle barriers reinforced. Taeil seemed to have a knack for looking awkward and conspicuous. And no one wanted to leave him alone; he seemed like the type who’d wander off in his sleep and get himself into trouble without even trying. 

"Let’s gather our stuff and meet back here before midnight," Taeyong said. 

"Look at you, Mister Call-the-Shots," Doyoung said with his mouth in a wide grin, and Taeyong groaned a little.

"I’m just doing this because none of you seem to want to put those big heads of yours to use," he said, and Doyoung rolled his yes. More often than not, decisions created mistakes. And mistakes were scary and multiplied like viruses, and if you weren’t the one who made the decision, you didn’t have to take responsibility for the consequences. That was why Taeyong had joined the flight academy in the first place; people there told you exactly where to go and what to do. It was cool not to care. No one really knew you or liked you, but no one really disliked you either. Yet here he was, watching this little ragtag team of students about to flip to the other side of the law. And then he added, "We leave tomorrow at dawn."

—

"So, Taeil, huh," Doyoung said smugly, his voice low. Of course that bastard was too buzzed to fall asleep. Doyoung regularly stayed up into the wee hours of the morning studying for exams, anyway, so if anyone was awake, it would be him.

Doyoung had been at the garrison for what seemed like forever. He didn’t look suited to be a pilot— he was tall and lanky and stiff like an uncooked noodle, with bony fingers and whole closet of jeans that were way too big for him. Accordingly, he was the top student enrolled in the extraterrestrial substances curriculum, though he knew pretty much everything about piloting, too. More than Taeyong, at least, who was top of his piloting class. And Doyoung didn’t look much interested in extraterrestrial substances anyway, though he insisted that he was and that he loved it, but his eyes always looked a little dull when he observed the little bacterias and wrote up lab reports. He and Taeyong had been stuck in general-ed courses together since the beginning of time, and Doyoung usually outscored Taeyong in tests, homework, projects— pretty much everything except flight simulation, but Doyoung still had some sort of superiority complex and loved to rub it in Taeyong’s face every day.

Taeyong didn’t mind. Actually, the competition was nice. Everyone else seemed either too scared to approach Taeyong or would kill for a chance to lick his shoes, so Doyoung was kind of interesting. The nicer Taeyong tried to be to Doyoung, though, the more Doyoung rebuked him. But for whatever reason, Doyoung kept coming back for more. 

Taeyong literally thought Doyoung was asking him to prom when he stopped him after class yesterday and asked if he was doing anything that night. "There’s something weird going on with one of the satellites— I heard it on my radio stream the other day," Doyoung had said. "Wanna go check it out with me?"

"You’re not going to the dance?" Taeyong asked— without any pretenses, but Doyoung had a way of getting offended at everything.

He scoffed. "Don’t patronize me."

"I’m not," Taeyong said a little dejectedly. "Really."

"I don’t like dances," said Doyoung, sighing. His voice was nasally from the back of his throat, but it was forward and confident.

"Have you ever been?"

Doyoung shot him a dirty look, but then turned away and relaxed his expression when he saw Taeyong trying to be earnest. "N-no. But I don’t think I’d like it."

Taeyong leaned against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. It was metal and plain and the same as it had ever been. "It’s our last year."

Doyoung sniffed. "Yeah, what about it?"

"I’ll take you," Taeyong said offhandedly.

Doyoung coughed and doubled over like he was laughing but it kind of sounded like he was having an asthma attack instead. "Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not even my type."

"Oh?" Taeyong said, smirking instead. So Doyoung had a type. "Then who is?"

Doyoung squirmed. He was just about one of the worst liars in the universe, and Taeyong tried not to take advantage of this knowledge too often, but sometimes it was just too tempting. "Like I’d tell you," Doyoung snapped, and Taeyong flicked his hair in response, and that was just how they existed together.

Taeyong looked up at the ceiling from his pathetic little sleeping arrangement on the floor of Doyoung and Jaehyun's room. They'd decided sleeping arrangements through rock-paper-scissors, which was similar to the amount of faith Doyoung seemed to have in this mission right now. Although he did end up winning, so that was a good sign, even if it meant Taeyong had to sleep on the floor. Doyoung was on the bunk right beside him while Jaehyun snored softly on the top bunk. "Shut up," Taeyong whispered, to which Doyoung laughed that choked off, satisfied laugh he did when he knew he was right.

"Didn't know you had some weird alien kink," Doyoung said.

"He's not an alien," Taeyong snapped back, the words coming out a lot harsher than intended.

"Whoa, I was kidding," Doyoung replied, and Taeyong shrunk back in his cot. After a little bit of shifting under the blankets, Doyoung continued, "Either way, he's definitely not human."

Taeil had undeniably punched a hole into the ground. Other than that, though, he'd remained completely harmless and otherwise friendly if not a little awkward, as if unaccustomed to certain human behavior patterns but completely acquainted with others. "I don't care what he is," Taeyong said lowly, and Doyoung snorted, though the sound was fond and soft.

"I know you don't, loser," he said, turning on his side and throwing his blanket over his shoulder.

It must've been a few more hours before Doyoung's breathing finally evened out. Out of the corner of Taeyong's eye, Doyoung's shoulder seemed to visibly sink, too, as if he couldn't fully relax until he was literally unconscious. Taeyong felt a little bad for him, suddenly struck with a wave of compassion for the guy. He must've had a lot going on in his mind, even if it was just to outsiders an obscure garble of chemistry and game theory and engineering.

The sleep issue ("Insomnia, Taeyong. There’s a word for it," Doyoung said, but it wasn’t _that_ serious, it really wasn’t) had been a problem on and off for years. Taeyong had known intuitively that it would come back tonight, but he'd still held a paltry little spark of hope that some loose ceiling panel on the ship might fall on his head and knock him out for a few hours. His prayers weren't answered. 

Taeyong wordlessly climbed out of his pile of blankets and crawled toward the door. Maybe Taeil had some alien— er, space sleep aids in some space first-aid cabinet on the ship. If anything, the ship always had unexplored passageways and secret compartments that now more or less belonged to them, and Taeyong could use the time to acquaint himself before they left. Taeyong had seen his fair share of space vehicles— it was something they had to learn about in piloting. Older space explorers went on armed missions to other planets and brought back pictures and blueprints of how other civilized species planned their architecture for the students to study in case they ever had to plan an ambush or wage all-out war. None of them were ever quite the same, though, and certainly nothing like this. He’d been living on the academy campus for as long as he could remember, and new places, though novel and exciting for the first few minutes, always left an uneasy feeling in his stomach that he couldn’t quite place. Hundreds of flight simulations couldn’t prepare you for the feeling of actually journeying out into space, where there were no lock-on targets or plugs to pull in case of emergency, where there wouldn’t be an instructor screaming every direction into your ear. People always seemed to forget that space was mostly cold and silent.

When Taeyong reached the door, he tensed up instinctively. Someone was on the other side. They were motionless, but they were there. He slid the door open manually, his eyes scanning in every direction for signs of danger until they landed on a familiar willowy white blob curled up across the hall, staring up at him.

"Taeil," Taeyong breathed, letting his shoulders droop.

"Sorry, did I scare you?" Taeil said, standing up.

"It's no big," said Taeyong. The door slid shut behind him and then it was just the two of them, alone in the darkened hallway.

Taeyong had to constantly remind himself that he wasn't already in space. The castle was foreign and it rumbled as it powered up and tested various utilities in preparation for the trip. It looked like space and felt like space, only they weren't moving yet and the stars were still familiar patterns in the sky. You could even see the mountains shrouded in shadow reaching up for them, seeming to get a little closer every day. Maybe in space there would be different stars, or you wouldn’t be able to tell which one was the sun, or maybe by the time they got to wherever they needed to go, the sun would just be a distant memory.

"Couldn't sleep?" Taeyong said coolly as they walked through the halls, their hands brushing against each other occasionally.

"Maybe it's because I just woke up from a long sleep?" said Taeil. His bare, calloused feet made little padding noises against the cold tile, and his voice echoed smoothly as if in an acoustic chamber. It was pleasing to the ears, like touching a fresh sheet of paper.

"That punch must've taken _something_ out of you, though," Taeyong said with a grin, and Taeil smiled fondly down at his hands.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't think I'm like you guys. Though I look like you, and... feel the same."

"Hey, I don't care what you are," Taeyong cut in quickly. "You told us you’re Taeil, so you’re just Taeil. And your superstrength came in handy. So we’re good."

"Thanks," Taeil said brightly, sliding the door to his own room open.

Suddenly, Taeyong felt nervous. His feet wouldn't carry him past the threshold even as Taeil went in ahead. He’d never known the feeling of having friends; at the garrison, he’d never been in anyone’s room except his own. And now he’d just sort of followed Taeil down the hall to his _bedroom_. With a bed. A big one. And it had that fancy, elegant feel, hung with ornate curtains embroidered in gold and a garish tapestry spread across the floor. It was as if someone had taken them back in time, to a place only textbooks knew. Not even novelists could’ve described this, Taeil breezing across the floor in a plain dress, stark white against the background as if he’d stepped into a Renaissance-era painting and someone forgot to color in the rest of his body. It was both eerie and magical, and every one of Taeil’s movements seemed to remind Taeyong that this was really happening. 

"Come in," Taeil said when he noticed Taeyong frozen stupidly at the doorway.

Taeyong nodded stiffly and walked inside, sliding the door closed with a soft, nervous click. And then it was just the two of them in Taeil's room, dark and vast and warm. Taeil patted the space next to him on the bed, and when Taeyong sat down gingerly, Taeil rolled onto the other side, playful and excited like a puppy. "Have you ever been on a journey before?" he breathed, and Taeyong sucked in a breath watching him and the way his robe draped over him neatly and rode up, exposing his thin ankles.

"Yeah, maybe when I was moving into the garrison," Taeyong said distractedly. He barely remembered the trip, only that his mom had snuck some sleep aids into his lunch beforehand. He'd been furious when he woke up and they had already landed and he missed everything he’d been so excited to see as a kid— the landscapes, the cities, the clouds. That was before you learned, usually in secondary, that most of those were in ruins now, eroded away by centuries of building and demolishing and rebuilding and abandoning before moving onto the next habitable piece of earth until there were no more areas left.

"How long have you studied there?" Taeil asked. He was still now, playing with the threads on the comforter and looking at Taeyong.

"Mm, since elementary school maybe?" Taeyong said. "Haven't seen my parents since I was like eight."

"I'm sorry," Taeil said, looking down at his fingers. "You should at least say goodbye."

"I think it'll be easier if I don't," Taeyong said. "We're not that close, anyway. I think they might've shipped me off to get rid of me."

Taeil shook his head. "I’m sure they miss you just as much as…" he said, trailing off at the end and looking away.

Taeyong paused for a moment. "… Do you remember anything about your family?"

Taeil shook his head. 

"I’m sorry," Taeyong said this time, and Taeil rolled over onto his stomach.

"If I don’t remember them, I can’t miss them," he reasoned. Taeil was surprisingly optimistic, as if he lived only in the present. Well, if you didn’t have any memories, you didn’t really have a choice. "Do you think the others will want to say goodbye to their families?"

Taeyong shifted uncomfortably. "I… I don’t really know. I don’t know them all that well."

"Oh?" said Taeil. "I thought you all were friends?"

"We—" Taeyong started, crossing his legs and turning so that he was sitting fully on the bed. "We were stargazing together, skipping out on prom. We just met Ten today, actually."

"What’s prom?" said Taeil, and Taeyong laughed.

"Like… like a school dance. You go with your date— someone you love, and you dance and eat and party with your friends."

"Sounds fun," Taeil mused, looking up at the thick canopy over the bed and folding his hands over his stomach. "Why would you skip that?"

"Some of us— we don’t like dances."

Taeil seemed to accept this as an answer or something to ponder, having preferences or not enjoying certain things you were supposed to enjoy. Taeyong always assumed you were just born with those preferences, but maybe bad experiences could sour you without you actively noticing. Like how people always sneered and looked at Doyoung funny behind his back when they thought he wasn’t looking, but he was incredibly perceptive and always picked up on those things. It was easy not to like people if that was how they treated you, and not to like dances even if you’d never been to one.

Hell, Taeyong didn’t have to endure that kind of treatment and he _still_ hated most people. Interacting with them felt so pretentious. All the lying was exhausting, like an unplanned nap that just ended up making you more groggy than before, or when you trained too hard and pulled a muscle. Some people, like Doyoung, didn’t have the energy or patience for it. Those people were noble; they spent their energy wisely, on meaningful things that were true to themselves. It was cool to be apathetic these days. It was easier, too. Of course, Taeyong could spend hours shooting the breeze with Doyoung; it was effortless, like breathing, but it was _real_. If only existence could be that way, too.

Taeil’s breathing soon became rhythmic. He was lying on top of the blankets with his head turned a bit to the side, eyes closed and arms limp over his stomach. It was hard not to stare. "Say hello to your mother for me…" he murmured, trailing off at the end and rolling onto his side and tucking his hands under his head. He was beautiful.

Taeyong wondered what to do with his hands or himself, sitting stiff and awake on top of Taeil’s comforter. After Taeil had been asleep for a good ten minutes, Taeyong gingerly pulled the blankets out from under him and draped them over his body, and Taeil felt so light that the blankets might crush him. And then Taeyong sat with his chin in his hand, watching Taeil sleep. It was almost morning.

—

Doyoung’s quiet voice in the hallway broke Taeyong’s trance. Another night of vapid staring, but at least there was something pretty to look at now. "Oh, he’s definitely in there," Doyoung was saying from outside the door. "The question is whether or not we’ll be opening the door to something we don’t want to see."

Taeyong furrowed his eyebrows and soundlessly hopped off the bed, opening the door to Doyoung with his hand raised to knock and Mark beside him, looking sheepish. 

"Thanks for sparing us the honor," Doyoung said flatly. "You look… dressed."

"Shut up, I didn’t get any sleep," Taeyong said, and Doyoung snorted.

"We know."

Taeyong closed the door behind him and leaned against it, looking past Doyoung into the hallway. "We didn’t— it’s not what you think."

"Oh?" said Doyoung, crossing his arms with a smirk. "I was just _thinking_ you might’ve been in there reading our darling Taeil some storybooks, but if there’s something more I should know about, please, be my guest."

"Mark, how’s the ship?" Taeyong said, ignoring Doyoung, who counted it as a victory in his ongoing war with Taeyong’s tolerance level.

Mark rubbed his head, not easily fazed. "It’s more or less up and running. The controls are really intuitive. I’m not really sure what I’m doing, but it’s like it understands where we need to go."

"Maybe that was how someone like Taeil got here in the first place," suggested Doyoung.

"You don’t think someone programmed it in for him?" Taeyong said. "It’s— why would you willingly erase your own memory like that?"

"Sometimes there are things you don’t want to remember," Doyoung said quietly. He then took in a deep breath through his nose and pushed his glasses up again. "Ten’s outside getting the lion in the hangar."

"Last time I checked, he was more playing than… getting." Jaehyun’s voice echoed down the hallway as he approached in nothing but a thermal shirt and boxers, most of his hair swept comically off to the side.

"Put clothes on, you imbecile," Doyoung hissed, and Jaehyun shot him a lazy grin.

"Aye."

Taeil’s room made up a bridge of the castle, the windows reinforced with several layers of carbon fiber, glass on the inside to mimic that cold feeling of real windows, while on the outside, metal shutters slid open and closed mechanically at will like the wings on an airplane. When Taeyong slipped back inside, Taeil was watching him, sitting on top of the covers again with his knees pulled to his chest. The blinds were pulled and the sky was a dark dusty indigo, that hint of warmth slowly creeping in before it turned grey and the sun started rising. The horizon was finally quiet, latent sounds from the booming dance music last night all fizzled out; you could hear the hollers of some drunk groupies in the distance and pretend they were birds. 

"How did you sleep?" Taeyong said, sitting next to Taeil on the bed.

"Well," Taeil replied softly.

"Have any dreams?"

Taeil looked out over the unmade bed and smoothed his hands over it. "No," he said, seeming surprised at himself. "No, I didn’t."

"Good," said Taeyong, brushing Taeil’s hair back. Taeil closed his eyes when Taeyong’s fingers brushed past his forehead, keening under the physical affection. "Mark is out on the bridge trying to pilot this thing. You think we’ll survive long enough to make it past the atmosphere?"

Taeil laughed. "He seems like a bright kid. Going places. And the tall one, he’ll make sure nothing blows up, just like he said he would."

"Doyoung," Taeyong said with a grin, and Taeil nodded.

One of the lions was only a few thousand AUs away, according to Taeil. "Maybe half a light year?" Taeil said, standing at the bridge, where a control panel lit up in front of him that seemed too tall for him to reach the uppermost commands. He looked small and lost standing there, as if someone had died and handed him the reigns before he even learned how to mount the horse. 

Mark had overseen the takeoff, but now he was with Ten trying to fix some software malfunction in the blue lion’s tail that messed up its sense of balance. "I think he’ll be fine," Mark had said with his distinctive wide-eyed expression.

"Taeil?" Taeyong said lowly, standing near the exit to the hallway with Mark as Taeil gazed in wonder at the spherical, multidimensional view the bridge gave of the surroundings. The window extended in a big balloon around them gridded with circuitry, and the stars and nebulas were mapped out in a bright cyan that continually updated itself as the ship moved leisurely away from the earth. "You sure?"

"It’s intuitive," Mark repeated. "Kinda like walking. Like it knows what you want to do. Have some faith, man."

"I do have faith," Taeyong protested weakly, and Mark grinned.

'You need to stop hanging out with Doyoung so much."

Said pilot was currently hovering over Taeil; Doyoung got anxious when he wasn’t busy with something, so now he was attempting to point out the controls as they moved away from under his finger. "I think they’re playing a game with you," Taeil said brightly, and Doyoung grumbled. 

"Are you okay piloting?" said Taeyong, approaching them. 

"Erm," Taeil replied. "I think getting there is actually the easy part. You guys are on your own once you’re off the ship."

"We’ll need to split up," Taeyong said, and Doyoung listened carefully, probably ready to shoot down Taeyong’s idea the minute he said something stupid. "Someone to guard the ship in case something goes wrong."

"It has pretty powerful self-defense capabilities built in," Doyoung said. "I was reading through the specs last night. It would be smart to send Ten and the lion out in a larger group, while maybe only one of us needs to stay back."

"But we don’t know whose lion it is," Taeyong pointed out. 

"Once we get closer," said Taeil, "I can pull a visualization up on the screen."

"The ship has scopes way more powerful than the human eye," Doyoung said. "I think we should be able to tell even from outside the planet’s atmosphere."

"And if it’s underground?" Taeyong said.

Doyoung shrugged, frowning at Taeyong petulantly. "Then we’ll just have to make a grand old guess and hope for the best."

Once they cleared the solar system, Taeil could open a wormhole straight to the destination. Doyoung bounced his knee nervously as Taeil hummed while the asteroid belt flew by in large, nonthreatening chunks of rocks and dust. Jaehyun wandered by after he finished breakfast, hair brushed back with his hand and wearing something presentable, jeans and the old varsity jacket he wore literally every waking moment in the garrison when he wasn’t in uniform. "Shouldn’t there be, like, liabilities to wormholing through space-time?" Jaehyun said, settling down next to Doyoung, and Doyoung rolled his eyes.

"What, you want me to sign a waiver for you?"

"Yes Mom," Jaehyun said happily, and Doyoung stomped on his foot. At least Jaehyun was relaxed as ever, not-so-secretly taking everything in and probably comparing it to the hundreds of science fiction novels he’d read multiple times. Taeyong, who’d been librarian for the first semester Jaehyun was in school, knew all that kid’s dirty secrets even though he acted like a punk in class. Jaehyun had been the one to approach them about their expedition earlier that week— he worked on the equipment with Mark sometimes, who was the only other one privy on their little outings.

"I thought I’d ask you since Doyoung literally hates my guts," Jaehyun said, seeming oddly miffed about the fact. Then again, Jaehyun kind of had an intense compulsion to be liked by everyone.

"You never know," Taeyong said lightly. "He kinda acts like that to everyone."

"No one’s gonna like him better if he’s such a bitch," Jaehyun grumbled.

"Well, if you and your punk ass friends keep treating him like that, he’s not gonna _want_ anyone to like him better," Taeyong replied. Jaehyun grunted. "I know you’re better than that, nerd."

"Not so loud," Jaehyun said with a grin, and Taeyong ruffled his hair.

Doyoung and Jaehyun had some history together that Taeyong frankly didn’t want to know the details of, but now Doyoung hated Jaehyun and ignored him every chance he got, even though Jaehyun delighted himself in shamelessly pursuing the poor guy. Doyoung probably thought Jaehyun was taunting him, and Doyoung’s petulance made Jaehyun’s friends mad on Jaehyun’s behalf. Surprisingly, Doyoung agreed to Jaehyun joining their little excursion, much to Jaehyun’s delight. Maybe Doyoung actually did get lonely sometimes.

Taeyong moved to join Taeil near the control panel, which stood in the center of the oddly vast and empty room, giving the impression that space was even more lonely than it already was. Taeil’s voice was smooth like honey as he hummed out a tune. "You’re a singer," Taeyong said, and Taeil looked up at him.

"Just a hobby," he said after a moment, going back to studying the controls.

"You have a nice voice," Taeyong said, and Taeil smiled.

"I like yours too," he said simply, and it made Taeyong flush up to his ears again.

The wormhole was cartoonish in its grandiosity. It was large, way bigger than the ship needed, and as they approached it glittered like the inside of a rave except it was silent as death.

"If the coordinates are good, it should be a straight shot from here," Taeil said. "I hope you don’t get motion sickness."

"They trained it out of us in flight school," Doyoung said. "Taeyong probably regurgitated most of his insides in the process."

Taeil smiled fondly when Taeyong shot Doyoung a glare. 

"Is it… really bad?" Taeyong whispered when Doyoung was out of earshot, and Taeil laughed.

"No, I was just messing with you," Taeil said. "But would you like to hold my hand? You seem like the easily startled type."

Taeyong deflated a little at how true it was. "Thanks," he mumbled, embarrassed. But the softness of Taeil’s skin was worth it.

"Tell me about the flight training classes," Taeil suggested, tilting Taeyong’s head so that he wasn’t staring wide-eyed out the front window. He’d heard he had a tendency to look a little scary like that, eyes wild and frazzled.

"We had to do a bunch of simulations, first with computer screens then with the motion simulators before we could actually test run a plane," Taeyong explained. "The motion simulators were hell. I think if I didn’t get such good grades, they would’ve kicked me out for how much equipment I ruined from just vomiting all over it."

Taeil, instead of shrinking back, squeezed Taeyong’s hand tighter and his eyes twinkled. "Did you get to pilot any real planes?"

"Yeah," Taeyong said distantly. Taeil must’ve sensed it, because he wordlessly probed for more. "Yeah, I flew some fighters during scrimmages."

"How was it?"

"Way better than simulations," Taeyong replied. "It was like… flying."

Taeil laughed, and Taeyong realized what he’d said and pursed his lips together in embarrassment. "I’d sure hope so," said Taeil.

"I mean," Taeyong started, but finding the words to describe it to someone who had no frame of reference— or an unpredictable one, because it seemed like Taeil knew some feelings almost frighteningly well and others he wasn’t aware even existed in the human experience. "It’s calming and peaceful because no one else is up there with you," Taeyong said. "And not having to worry about anything, and being confident in yourself because you’re the only one who can do it as well as you."

"Peace, confidence," Taeil murmured as if he’d never heard the words before.

"And," Taeyong said.

"And?"

"Freedom, I guess? There are no rules. You can go in all directions, in three different dimensions. It’s magical, being so high up even though there’s gravity and everything." Taeyong was talking fast now; he knew he was. But Taeil watched him intently, hanging on his every word, which only urged him onward. "You know how sometimes it’s hard to even drag yourself out of bed because you feel so heavy? It’s crazy how in the sky, you feel completely weightless, like you don’t even exist. It’s like—" he started, but then cut himself off. _It’s like being with you_ , he wanted to say, but that would be weird.

Taeil turned away then and looked toward the front window. And just like that, they were out of the wormhole and on the other side, where the stars looked the same but not the same, scattered at slightly different angles, like a distorted view of reality. Ursa Major turned all stretched and blotchy, and there were some things Taeyong had never been able to see before, like the planet they approached, which was greenish-yellow and small and hidden from view.

"See, it wasn’t so bad, right?" Taeil said, but his gaze was glued to the window in wonder, as if he, too, were discovering for the first time where he really belonged. Exploring space did kinda give you that feeling, that you were made for it, that you were the only one in the universe who could see what was really out there. Taeil’s grip slipped limp, but Taeyong grabbed on tight this time because even though they were out of the wormhole, he was afraid to let go.

—

The mission ended with Doyoung sulking.

Nothing ever got done when Doyoung was sulking. He’d even locked Jaehyun out of what was supposed to be his own room, but Jaehyun seemed more concerned about Doyoung’s mood than anything else, which was definitely a recent development. "We need to get you to a healing pod," Taeil was saying, but Jaehyun insisted that the injury wasn't that bad, and that Doyoung needed company right now even though Jaehyun's torn up shirt revealed a burn running the length of his torso where the skin was already beginning to peel and welt up. It took everyone available to virtually drag Jaehyun away with Jaehyun being the strongest of them (not including Taeil, who insisted he didn’t want to accidentally hurt Jaehyun and thus wouldn’t help with the dragging part), and they only succeeded because Jaehyun really was in pain, flinching even as Taeil helped him strip down to a white thermal and a smock similar to Taeil's own.

Everyone breathed a little easier once they manhandled Jaehyun into the pod. He looked oddly peaceful in there, like he wasn’t hiding anything for once in his life. Jaehyun had a leisurely gait and seemed friendly, but in a way his life felt just as hard as Doyoung’s sometimes with all the faces he had to keep up to stay well-liked. It was funny, then, and Doyoung ended up being the one person who hated him. In a way it kinda fit; if there was one thing Doyoung absolutely despised with every fiber of his being, it was dishonesty.

They still had Doyoung to worry about, of course. "How long will it be?" Taeyong said, looking over at Jaehyun suspended in a clear fluid inside what looked to be a giant, sealed-off vial.

"Mm, I’d say with the extent of his injuries, maybe a day?" Taeil said. 

Jaehyun had gone gallanting off into some unknown wood as soon as they landed. Doyoung insisted on just letting him be, but Taeyong had argued that everyone should stay together; the original plan had been to approach the cave while flying in Ten’s blue lion and then dismount when the opening got too small to fit the lion in. Mark, since he knew the castle best, would stay back with Taeil. 

"We don’t need that loser," Doyoung had said, his eyes darting back and forth in Jaehyun’s absence. "He’s strong. He’ll be fine on his own."

But that was precisely why they needed him. Jaehyun had taken the straight shot the direction of the lion, whereas Doyoung wanted to avoid disturbing the environment as much as possible. Taeyong kinda agreed with Jaehyun on this one— they were literally extracting a mechanical lion from the premises. It would be pretty hard to remain inconspicuous after that. However, there was no use arguing with Doyoung once he had his mind set on something, so they made their way, the three of them, into the clearing and down the winding path toward the cave. 

Which turned out to be more of a volcano but tipped on its side, the opening intermittently oozing a weird acidic goo. Jaehyun got there first and had taken it upon himself to stop the flowing of the goo, which was how he got the bad burn on his back. Otherwise things went more or less smoothly until it was time to hack the lion out from underneath a thick overgrowth of vines. Jaehyun wanted to wait for the lion to respond to someone and break itself free. Doyoung wanted to hack the thing out with a machete. Taeyong thought they were both the Literal Worst.

It wasn’t responding, so they hacked away. For hours. They’d gone a little overboard, literally polishing the whole thing off so not a single leaf remained. They’d all had quite a bit of pent-up energy.

The lion still didn’t respond. Under the dim light from the cave opening, they could see that it was clearly green. 

"Green stands for inquiry and wit," Taeil said when they phoned him in over the intercom, all gathered in Ten’s lion, sweaty and frustrated. "Someone smart, with good problem-solving skills."

"That’s Doyoung," Taeyong said simply, but Doyoung had been climbing all over it for ages and the thing refused to spark even a little. He was still out there, staring it in the eye and poking at its nose and tickling in its ears.

"We better get Mark out here, he might know what’s up," Ten suggested. Taeil made a thoughtful sound and sent Mark out to help them, insisting he and the castle would be fine on their own. Ten picked Mark up in the lion and carried him out there in between the lion’s teeth, and Mark suddenly very much resembled a baby cheetah. 

No one expected the green lion to react as fast and as violently as it did. 

The lion’s particle barrier went up before Mark and Ten even reached the entrance of the cave— this literally threw an unsuspecting Doyoung against the cave wall. And then it proceeded to bulldoze its way out of the cave, narrowly missing collapsing the entire structure on Doyoung, and swipe Mark out of the jaws of the blue lion possessively like a mother bird. Taeil described it as being pretty comical from a third-person vantage point, but everyone else was too shaken to really appreciate the unexpected domesticity.

And now they were all there inside the castle, flying a safe distance out of the gravitational pull of that solar system in preparation for another worm tunnel. And Doyoung was sulking.

"Will he be okay?" Taeil said, tilting his head toward Doyoung’s room.

Taeyong laughed. "And here we all are worried about Jaehyun’s life threatening third degree burns and you’re worried about Doyoung’s emotional wellbeing."

Taeil smiled softly. "He looked like he really wanted that green lion."

"We all thought it would be him after your description."

"Everything happens for a reason," Taeil said peacefully. "It’ll reveal itself eventually."

Taeyong grinned. "You’re into this whole 'fate' thing?"

"I believe that’s how I met you," Taeil replied. "So yes, you could say I’m 'into it'."

That shut Taeyong right up. Taeil, who never let a reaction get past him, stared at Taeyong eagerly as another well-timed blush rose to his face. Taeil’s eyes were sparkling, which made him seem both otherworldly and so inexplicably _human_ at the same time. 

They were close. They were standing in the hallway just outside the healing pod room and they were close, breathing in each other’s air. Taeil smelled faintly of something not of earth— it was three parts sweet to one part sour, a little earthy and spicy like some kind of tropical fruit with the peel left on. He was not much shorter than Taeyong, but his shoulders sloped down while Taeyong’s were straight and square, and when Taeil pressed all his limbs together everything fit snug, while Taeyong, who was limber and bony, had awkward gaps between his legs and his arms and his torso. If Taeyong elbowed someone it might puncture right through their body, while Taeil was all blunt and soft curves, a smoothness Taeyong had never seen up close before. And they were close, close enough to—

"Well," Taeyong said loudly, jerking his shoulders and stepping away. "Since we have a bit of time before Jaehyun can be back on duty, we should… clean."

"Clean," Taeil repeated, his smile fading but his eyes still bright.

"Oh, this idiot loves cleaning," Doyoung said, sauntering up behind Taeil. Taeyong nodded at him gratefully. 

So Taeil dug up what looked like spongey-looking things from a supply closet and after putting hundreds of suspicious and occasionally hazardous liquids through the centrifuge they found solutions that could be used for polishing. And they cleaned as Taeyong wondered why he couldn’t just be more upfront with Taeil. How he could possibly lead if he couldn’t even figure out his own feelings. That with great power came great responsibility and a vague sense of self-consciousness he’d never had to worry about before. How a bunch of impulsive, funny decisions came to this. Maybe it was part fate, and would Taeyong be testing it if he told Taeil how beautiful he was, how every time he walked by Taeyong felt suddenly overcome with an urge to grab him and hold him to his chest and never let go.

—

Cleaning ended with Doyoung locking himself in their room and throwing all of Taeyong’s belongings out into the hall while screaming, "I’m not wasting my time setting up your goddamn bed if you’re not even gonna use it!" which, in effect, was a logical argument. Besides the fact that Jaehyun was in the healing pod and there were literally two beds and only one person in there now, but Doyoung sounded like he did when he wanted to be alone to Think but masked it as a deep-set hatred for most of humanity.

So Taeyong was carrying his belongings across the bridge to Taeil’s room when he saw Taeil’s figure standing in the hallway, peering out into space. On that particular side bridge there was a balcony overlooking a large convex circular window like on a submarine, only the outside was space and the fish were stars. Taeyong set his stuff down and approached Taeil gingerly.

"All that and you’re still not tired?" he said. 

"I am worried," Taeil replied, not looking away from the view of the stars outside. "The next location is very dangerous."

"But you said there were two lions there, right?" said Taeyong, turning to stand next to Taeil and look out himself. He wondered briefly what Taeil saw out there in that vast darkness. "We should try as hard as we can."

"Only by circumstance," Taeil replied. "The red lion changes location sporadically, and we don’t have much time. The solar system we’re headed to is extremely volatile. And Doyoung still doesn’t sound like he’s very happy with the way events are currently unfolding."

Red, yellow, and black were left. Doyoung behaved fine, but anyone who’d known him longer than a few days could tell something was off, like how he always steered the topic of conversation away from Voltron or didn’t participate if they were all talking about it. He hadn’t gone to even look inside the green or blue lions, and, again, locked himself in his room apart from mealtimes or obligatory courtesy calls to check up on the others. Without Jaehyun around, no one really felt confident or close enough to drag Doyoung out, and no one was optimistic or delusional enough to deny that there was even a problem at all, which was exactly what Doyoung needed right now. He flourished off debate and confrontation— it took his mind off things and helped him reason out his own feelings. Being left to stew in your own self-doubt was never healthy, least of all for Doyoung, whose mind could take something and run with it faster than the castle traveled in warp. Assuming that Doyoung had been fine when he left his room in an okay mood was a mistake, but there wasn’t much they could do about it now.

"Jaehyun will be out soon— we’ll be fine," Taeyong said firmly, but Taeil didn’t respond. Relying on or waiting for others could never be the only solution. Yet the rewards were too lucrative not to take the risk— the red lion was difficult to track down, and if they failed now, they could end up chasing it for years, always a step behind.

It wasn’t that Taeyong hadn’t thought long and hard about this already when Taeil had given them a rundown on the destination galaxy that afternoon, counting on Doyoung to relay the information to Jaehyun when he was out of the healing pod. "The entire solar system is explosive and self-destructive," Taeil had said.

"Like Doyoung," Ten said, and even soured Doyoung laughed a little at that. 

Taeil smiled. "The planets explode once they detect the presence of intruding life forms, setting off a chain reaction of explosions, much like an atom bomb." The team would have about ten minutes from when they touched down on the planet to get to the lions (which, fortunately, were easily locatable), bond with them, and escape through the clusters of explosions. "In case anything goes wrong, I will construct a warp around the outside of the planet, so that the force of the explosion will send us all at least to the same place."

"Won’t that be difficult on your body?" Taeyong said, and Taeil smiled softly.

"You keep forgetting that I don’t tire as easily as you."

They would split up, sending Jaehyun, Ten, and Mark out to the yellow lion, which was farther from the landing spot and wedged between layers of rock and ice, and Taeyong and Doyoung would go on foot to the red lion to appear nonthreatening. If all went well, they’d have enough time to return to the ship. If they didn’t have time, whoever took the lion would carry the others as they escaped. It was more or less a decent plan in light of the time constraint. Doyoung would have to brief Jaehyun during landing, but Jaehyun was a clever kid.

Between Doyoung, Taeyong, and Jaehyun, no one could tell who was red, who was yellow, and who was black. Much of the operation would depend on pure luck and intuition, which was more than a little nerve-racking. Doyoung, who was a creature of both habit and impulse, recognized it was the best chance they had. Jaehyun— well, he’d go along with anything as long as he had a viable chance at success or escape. Taeyong…

"Taeyong?" Taeil was murmuring, taking his eyes off the stars for a moment to look at Taeyong. 

"Yeah," Taeyong replied distantly.

"Am I making you nervous?" said Taeil. "I apologize for bringing it up. I thought you would be asleep already."

"I'm— no, don't apologize," Taeyong said frantically. "It's not you."

Taeil didn't look convinced but turned to face Taeyong, leaning his elbow on the railing and scanning Taeyong's facial expressions with his bright, sad eyes. Space didn't have much light. There was a soft glow from the neon emergency directional lighting underneath the railing and along the bridge floor. Taeil looked like he radiated moonlight. 

"I just— I have something to say," Taeyong murmured, reaching forward for Taeil's hand. His own hands were shaking pathetically. "Tonight," he added.

Taeil smiled and shook his head softly. "Save it for tomorrow," Taeil said. "After it's all over."

"But—" 

"We're not going to die out there, Taeyong," Taeil said, sounding at peace. "I have confidence in us."

Taeyong's shoulders deflated slightly. But Taeil stepped forward and took Taeyong's face in his hands and pressed a firm kiss to Taeyong's lips.

The last thing Taeyong was expecting Taeil to do was to reach out for him first. To be completely honest, there was still a distant but persistent part of Taeyong that wondered how human Taeil really was. Part of him wondered if Taeil knew what love was. Taeyong wouldn’t have been so reactive when Doyoung pointed out that Taeil wasn’t completely human if he weren’t somewhat unsure about it himself, anyway. And that, along with Taeyong’s own insecurity and the natural laws of the world that dictated that no matter how good-looking you were, you were bound to be nervous as shit when you confessed to someone.

But Taeil's lips were chapped and soft, just like how Taeyong imagined. Taeil pulled a small distance away and opened his eyes partly, gaze lidded and darting all around Taeyong's face as if dazed but still looking for a reaction. It was like he himself had a hard time believing what he’d just done. 

And then Taeyong stepped into Taeil, lurching forward for another kiss and wrapping his hands around Taeil's waist and pulling him close. Taeil stumbled forward and breathed in deep when they broke away for a moment before kissing Taeyong again, this time coaxing Taeyong's mouth open with his own lips so they were properly kissing and tasting each others' lips, hard and edging on frantic but still with a mellow intimacy. They nipped at each other with lips and a bit of teeth, gentle and sensual and slow, Taeil imitating Taeyong’s motions. He clutched at the back of Taeyong’s shirt and pulled himself closer, resting his head on Taeyong’s shoulder and panting.

"Come to bed," Taeil said quietly after a moment.

Taeyong tightened his grip on Taeil’s waist. "Taeil," he said with a hint of concern, and Taeil froze for a moment then laughed.

"Not like that," Taeil said, and Taeyong relaxed a bit. Taeil pulled away and looked at him smartly. "We need our rest, especially you."

The corridor was just a few turns away from Taeil’s room, and Taeyong followed him silently for a while, clutching feebly at the back of Taeil’s gown like a lost puppy. "Do you rest better with me around?" Taeyong said as they neared the door to Taeil’s room, and Taeil stopped.

"… To be honest, I just don’t want to be alone," he said in a small voice, and it was all Taeyong could do not to hold Taeil as tight as he could and pepper his face with kisses; instead he swooped in and held him from behind, breathing in his hair and the back of his ear, which was warm and pliant like the rest of him.

"Was it lonely where you’re from?" Taeyong murmured, and Taeil shook his head.

"I don’t remember," he whispered. "And that’s what makes it lonely."

—

"Taeyong," Doyoung huffed as they hacked their way through oversized stalks of plant growth. "You do realize that on the off chance this lion doesn't want to bond with either of us we'll both die out here, right?"

Taeyong grunted. "I didn't want to be the stick in the mud," he said. "That's your job."

Doyoung grinned. "I have faith in us."

That shut Taeyong up for a while. Sure he'd considered it. He was about to bring it up, too, but they didn't have time and suddenly they were already dropping down onto the planet from inside the castle hangar and bolting into the distance. Mark had said Doyoung was the one who didn't have faith, and yet here he was, reckless and confident, trekking into the unknown and mighty optimistic. You couldn't possibly succeed by believing you were going to fail.

Working with Doyoung was efficient. Running away with Doyoung— well, they’d considered that, too. More specifically, what they were going to do after they formed Voltron. A counterattack was only possible with time and space and the element of surprise, not to mention intel and alliances, espionage and sacrifice. Doyoung had already accounted every possible disastrous situation and quickly deemed all of Taeyong’s plans impossible without severe consequences. "Where in the universe would we go?" Doyoung had said, though still toying with the idea curiously. You could almost see the gears in his head turning as he thought, his expressions resilient and clear. "They’d find us eventually."

People seemed to mistake Doyoung for this rule-abiding, stiff little bowl of stale tortilla chips. They didn't know how wrong they were until it was too late. "We’d just have to run long enough to take the fight back to them," Taeyong replied, moving his rook a few spots to the left. They’d repurposed a board game they found in an old storage closet on the castle into a makeshift version of chess, though a few pieces were missing here and there, and they kept forgetting which was which. Doyoung enjoyed the fresh twist— made it more challenging, he claimed, because he pretty much could trounce every one of them in five moves or less in traditional chess and that was boring. The poor little pieces were chained to the board because, according to Taeil, someone kept drunkenly stealing them after every birthday celebration. So they kept having to untangle the chains every time they made a move. It seemed like a weird little metaphor for their lives. 

Doyoung seemed to like that. He smirked. He hated running; he was an adept strategist, but a fighter first. He’d endure the run if it was a means an end. 

And as soon as Taeyong spotted the red lion in the clearing rearing its magnificent head at them, eyes already glowing as if it had expected their arrival, he knew it would be Doyoung’s. It was crouched, guarded, but the squint in its eyes looked curious in a way, like how Doyoung did when Taeyong deliberately provoked him in class or propositioned that they actually hang out like Normal People. It was like he knew it was a bad idea, but he wanted to know exactly _how_ bad.

Doyoung, apparently, seemed to have other plans. "Well, you’re up," Doyoung said, parting a way for Taeyong through the bushes and into the clearing. 

"What are you talking about?" Taeyong said stupidly, aware of their limited time but frozen anyway. 

"She’s all yours, bud," Doyoung replied, pointing his machete at the lion, which looked a little threatening. The red lion dug its heels into the ground harder.

"Come on, it could be either of us," Taeyong insisted, dragging Doyoung with him.

"Well, it’s _one_ of us," Doyoung said smartly.

They had about six minutes. So neither of them expected it when that familiar blue shield popped up right when they approached.

Taeyong had never felt compelled to go near one of the other lions before, really. Maybe it was an intuitive thing, but it was like none of them really felt right, that he didn’t want to spoil the surprise of settling into the pilot seat and feeling that supernatural connection Ten had described after he piloted the blue lion for the first time. _Like she knew exactly where you wanted to go and was always one step ahead_ , he’d explained. So Taeyong waited; the only reason he’d approached this red one was because he was literally dragging Doyoung’s ass over there. The sting from the particle barrier was a mild burning feeling, like an electric shock but the heat lingered. He briefly wondered if that was just a quirk of the red lion’s, but there wasn’t time to think about that, the shock of being so outright rejected shooting through his arm— or that was just the particle barrier again, bumping back against him as he walked into it over and over stupidly because there wasn’t anything else he could do.

Doyoung, on the other hand, was festering a silent kind of anger. At least for a little while, until he slammed his hand down on the barrier and growled, "You’ve gotta be kidding me." Then he jumped back and shook the pain out of his hand, and Taeyong let out a wry smile.

"That’s not gonna help."

"We’ve come so far," hissed Doyoung, rubbing his temples.

"Five minutes," Taeyong replied. 

Doyoung groaned. "Any idea what could be this guy’s problem?"

"I think it’s yours—" Taeyong started.

"Oh, so now it’s _my_ problem," Doyoung said, and Taeyong waved his hands in front of him frantically.

"No, no, I really— I’m not trying to blame you, I really think the lion is yours," said Taeyong.

Doyoung sighed and kicked at the barrier with his shoe. The red lion was obstinate, letting out a huff through its nose as if reacting to Doyoung’s motions. "As if I didn’t have enough failures under my belt already."

"Are you kidding?" Taeyong said. "You’re the best in your class— no, the whole school, man. I think she just wants you to own it."

"… Taeyong, if she doesn’t like me now, she won’t like me in three minutes," Doyoung said, and it seemed final. His voice was oddly resigned. "I feel like someone out there has got this all way wrong."

Taeyong felt like Doyoung got _himself_ all wrong. But that was what made Doyoung… Doyoung. He just didn’t know it because he’d never had to define it before. The path he carved for himself wasn’t made out of words. 

But sometimes things were so close you couldn’t see them clearly, like when you crossed your eyes and your nose looked all blurry and doubled. And if the lion wasn’t going to open the particle barrier for them now, then Doyoung was more or less right: three minutes wouldn’t help, either. "Two minutes and 30 seconds actually," Taeyong said with a sigh, making a move to turn back to the ship. But Doyoung settled down in a patch of grass next to the red lion, who was still clearly glowing but hadn’t moved since they arrived. "What are you doing?"

"Isn’t it obvious? I’m staying," Doyoung said.

Taeyong sighed. "You know that’s not gonna help anything."

Doyoung nodded. "I’m doing it anyway."

This was exactly something Doyoung would do. It was so very Doyoung that it hurt, and it might end up costing them their lives. But then again, they were the ones who hadn’t bonded. Hell, they hadn’t even _found_ Taeyong’s lion yet— for all they knew, he could just be tagging along for the ride and to try to get into Taeil’s pants. He might not even be a paladin, and the possibility suddenly scared him, after running on nothing but fumes and dire belief and adrenaline for so long. Reality always hit you right after you knew you’d failed, and Doyoung had realized this the moment the red lion rejected both of them. They were expendable. 

"Then me too," Taeyong said decisively, sitting opposite Doyoung. Nothing like a little reflecting on your own depressing thoughts for two solid minutes before imminent demise.

Something flickered across Doyoung’s face but he seemed hesitant, as if debating whether or not to say it. It was unlike Doyoung to think before he spoke, and now of all times, when they didn’t have much time to converse all polite and mannered. "What about Taeil?" Doyoung said finally, dropping his chin into his hands and grinning a little. "Look, you’ve always been one to volunteer for random suicide missions before, but now you have someone to live for."

Taeyong sputtered, crossing his legs. "It’s not like you don’t have someone, too," he retorted, and Doyoung scrunched his face and moved his eyebrows to retort back, but the thought seemed lost in his throat for a moment.

And, since they were probably going to die anyway, he dropped his shoulders pathetically and said, "Touche."

Taeil had been so sure they’d live through this. Well, maybe he wouldn’t have been if he’d known Taeyong was prone to reckless, stupid decisions. Except he wasn’t, not before this. He had changed. 

But then they wouldn’t have even gotten this far in the first place. Too bad neither of them would live to tell the tale. 

The ground under them gurgled, as if warning them, and Doyoung shot Taeyong an instinctive glance. Doyoung’s eyes were wild, almost as if, at the last minute, he was scared. Then again, he always kind of looked like that. Taeyong sturdied himself even more. 

"The captain goes down with his ship," Doyoung said.

Someone in the distance shouted, " _Doyoung_!" but there were a bunch of engine sounds and the ground was gurgling really loud and the voice was distorted, lost in the winds that howled around them. 

And then the explosion must’ve happened right there, because it felt like Taeyong was being hit by a truck, except maybe make that like 40 trucks. It wasn’t painful, though that could’ve been his nervous system's way of protecting him from what should’ve been something quite debilitating. It was just a lot of pressure, like lying between two mattresses with giant cement slabs on top of them. And it was sharp and sudden, knocking the breath right out of him, though everything around him was too loud to distinguish whether he was screaming for dear life or gasping for air.

Taeyong squeezed his eyes shut a little for fear, a little to avoid the swirling debris, and mostly out of pure tenacity; he was definitely rattling around in something, falling in and out of consciousness because his head hit the corner of a hard surface at some point. Frankly, dying should’ve been quicker and easier than this, but the universe felt compelled to spare him no mercy today. 

—

Taeyong groaned when the rumbling finally stopped. It felt like hours had passed and he’d been warped to some peaceful place, having a nice dream about kissing Taeil, and then something in the castle's boiler room was exploding. Which didn’t make sense because they didn’t even _have_ a boiler room— that was, like, 1800s technology.

But he also wasn’t even in the castle. He was actually— well, not really anywhere. Taeyong opened his eyes to a lot of sand and dirt in his lashes, and his eyes immediately stung and watered in response. Everything was blurry for a while, and dark, patches of vision flashing in and out of his consciousness as he rubbed his eyes weakly. There were a lot of stars, but— well, he was technically still in space. He was also breathing, so it must be a planet with an atmosphere, transparent and undetectable, but still survivable for the most part. The sky was dark in the distance, and the stars shined bright and in focus, as if Taeyong were just floating around freely through empty space. But he wasn’t floating, not even close— in fact, there was something hard and heavy over his entire torso pinning him to the ground. 

Taeyong groaned again, louder this time, and with his remaining strength shoved the piece of debris off of him. Except it wasn’t a piece of debris; it was connected to a pile of giant… sprawled out… sleeping… robot… lion.

"You’re not red," Taeyong said aloud. His voice was hoarse and the syllables short, as if there were nothing for the sounds to echo off of. This planet was grey, and dark, and incredibly lonely. Taeyong imagined it might be hollow inside, like a planet that had already died and was just waiting for some star to swallow it up and send it back into the circle of creation. 

And the lion lying in front of him was unlike any of the others— like it was darker and neutral, or had lost all chroma besides a few specks here and there, buttons and screws and such, and what colors it did have were a mix of all the others. It kind of looked like a nebula, a morpheus cloud of colorless gas but it was at the same time all the colors at once. "You’re the black lion," Taeyong said in realization. Without the echoes of the ship, his statement sounded dull and anticlimactic. "You saved me."

The lion was still whirring slightly as if breathing, and its eyes glowed the same dim cyan as all the others. "So I guess it’s just me and you here, bud," Taeyong said after observing it for a moment. It was lying on its side, like an animal sprawled out to sleep in a patch of sunlight. He settled down under its chin and leaned his back against its chest. "You did good," Taeyong said, patting its neck. "Though I don’t know how they’re gonna find us if you’re out of commission like this."

Everything from him to the horizon was just as grey and murky as the rest of the planet. There was no point in moving or trying to look for a solution, as Doyoung probably would’ve done. "Though I suppose I should’ve thought of that too before I decided to wait it out with Doyoung," Taeyong mused out loud. The weird way sound traveled through the atmosphere was making him feel talkative, as if his words held no permanence here. "I wonder how he’s doing."

Taeil would probably be lonely without Taeyong. Maybe that was why fate decided to drop him here on just about the loneliest planet ever to rot and die. He _really_ didn’t believe in those things, but the argument was starting to get pretty compelling. 

"Wait, aren’t you like, the leader lion or something? And you’re… my lion?" Taeyong said quietly, looking up into space. There were so many stars he couldn’t quite pick which belonged to possible constellations. If you tried to connect them all it would just be a tangled web of chaos. "I guess it’s fitting. I mean, we’re both pretty shitty leaders then, leaving the rest of them behind and all that."

"You’re wrong."

Taeyong jumped up, startled. That… definitely came from inside the lion. Its mouth, to be specific, like through its teeth. "You have a voice?" Taeyong said, staring.

There was a familiar laugh, soft and melodic and calm over crackly receiver distortion. "No, it’s me," Taeil said. "I’m sorry, I just got Ten and Mark back onto the ship— they _ran into it_ they were so excited to see it. So now they’re in healing pods and all squared away."

" _Taeil_ ," Taeyong breathed, unable to move or retain the rest of whatever Taeil was telling him.

"There’s signal between the castle and the lions— I should be able to see and hear, but for you I can only hear," Taeil said, shuffling around on the other end. "Is everything okay? Are you safe?"

"H—how long have you been listening?" Taeyong said finally. 

Taeil paused. He then said, "… The whole time, I imagine."

Taeyong groaned. Taeil’s voice was like a beacon on the distant planet, a sign of life. Even though he wasn’t there physically, it was almost palpable; Taeyong wanted to reach forward and hold onto it, but the only thing that met his hands was metal, cold and lifeless, rumbling quietly behind him. Now seemed like the perfect time for Taeil to uncover all his vulnerabilities. The world was mighty spiteful today. "How are Doyoung and Jaehyun? Are they okay?" Taeyong said, steering the topic away

Taeil paused again, this time letting out an awkward cough. "Um, they’re… fine. I was able to get in contact with their lions just fine. They’re not too far to each other."

Taeyong sat staring into space for a moment, contemplating Taeil’s reply. "… Are they fucking in the lion? Oh my god, they’re fucking in the lion aren’t they?"

"They… might be fucking in the lion, yes," Taeil said, and Taeyong snorted. Well, they’d be the ones cleaning that shit up. Taeil quipped, "So then I presume _you’re_ fine, since you seem to be so thoroughly amused by my suffering."

Taeyong laughed. "Yeah, more or less in one piece. I think this lion got a little banged up, though."

"Do you have _any_ idea where you are?" Taeil said.

Taeyong looked up to a bunch of pinholes in black paper. The stars were unfamiliar, as expected. Even if they were the same stars they saw from earth, lightyears away they’d look like they were in different positions, lost in space-time. "Nope. Nada."

Taeil sighed. "That’s my fault. The force of the explosion compromised the integrity of the wormhole. I didn’t take that into account when formulating the plan. Actually, there were a lot of things I didn’t take into account," he said all at once, trailing off at the end. He then let out a shaky breath, and Taeyong wanted nothing more than to fly over and wrap his arms around Taeil and rub his back. "… I’m just glad you’re alive."

"Please, it’s— don’t blame yourself," Taeyong said. Taeil was quiet. "It was— what Doyoung and I did was a stupid thing."

Taeil breathed rhythmically into the receiver like he couldn’t decide whether to agree or disagree. "It pleased his lion, though," he added after a moment.

So what happened, as they both tried to theorize ways to get Taeyong’s lion working at least enough to send out a geolocatable signal, was that the red lion swallowed Doyoung up into its cockpit at the last second, much like how Taeyong’s black lion swooped in to save him. Jaehyun had been the one shouting in the distance, hurtling by and crashing into Doyoung in an aborted attempt to rescue them both, and that was how they’d ended up in the same place despite the faulty wormhole. The momentum of the black lion in motion propelled Taeyong a ways further into the warp, and now he was here. "I’m glad he ended up bonding with it, though," Taeyong said.

Taeil was quiet again for a few moments as if thinking. "Taeyong," he said finally. "Why don’t you think about yourself?"

"What?"

"You keep asking about Doyoung and the others," Taeil explained. "Why don’t you worry about yourself?"

Taeyong laughed a little awkwardly, staring at the laces on his shoes. They were really dirty. When was the last time he’d bought new shoes? "Dunno. I guess I have all you guys to worry about. And you all worry enough about me."

Taeil hummed and Taeyong waited. They had all the time in the world anyway, though Taeyong was starting to miss Taeil’s touch terribly, just the warmth of his hand on Taeyong’s shoulder or the brush of his fingernails during their nighttime talks to let Taeyong know he was listening even though his eyes were closed or looking somewhere else. Weird, because Taeyong had never needed anyone else like this before. He’d never had goals or convictions before, either, or things that he wanted to fight for or protect. Maybe thirsting for human contact and all that, maybe it just came with the territory. Love, pain, faith— it was a package deal. "Taeyong," Taeil said slowly. "If we all disappear one day—"

"Don’t talk like that," Taeyong snapped. For a moment he even surprised himself with how sharp his voice came out.

"No, listen, really," Taeil urged, and Taeyong for some reason felt compelled to give in. Taeil usually had the last word in their conversations anyway, though he was soft about it, pleading like that was all he had. "If we all disappear one day, then who’s going to be left to worry about you?"

Taeyong was quiet.

"And don’t say you’re going with us, that’s not how it works," Taeil continued. "Life is unpredictable." 

Taeyong looked up again. Yeah, like hell it was. You could never really predict what you would do in any moment until it actually happened. That’s how they’d ended up here, through a series of hasty, less-than-perfect solutions to problems they didn’t even know they had the credentials to deal with, a bunch of juvenile piloting students who signed up for glory and prestige and were now on the road to disillusionment.

"The point is, you— you can have both. You can love us, and you can love yourself, too," Taeil said, his tone gentler this time. "I think you’re a great leader. I’ve thought so from the moment we met. That’s why I helped you guys find the blue lion. I wouldn’t just explode the earth for anyone, you know," he continued, and Taeyong grinned even though Taeil couldn’t see him. "I wish you could see it too. I— actually, I think I can help you see it, you know, over time. It doesn’t have to happen all at once."

"That’s," Taeyong said, trailing off. Taeil’s breath was even, confident. He was close to the receiver. "Wow, after that, I think you deserved a better confession scene from me."

Taeil laughed like twinkling stars. "I didn’t let you, remember?" he breathed. "Let’s take care of that when you get back."

"Deal," Taeyong said, and he could almost hear Taeil’s smile. His was a voice that changed according to his mood. Every tone was equally as enchanting as the next, though. Taeyong wanted to hear more, to uncover every voice Taeil had to show. He wanted to hear Taeil’s voice in a fit of anger— how loud would it go, or would he be quiet? Would he clench his teeth? Would he growl? Or Taeil happy, giddy even with excitement, cooing at something small and cute, bubbling over with affection. It was like he suddenly knew why Doyoung’s eyes looked so frazzled in those last moments, scared, like he was just then bombarded with all the things he hadn’t seen yet in this world, all the beauty it had yet to offer. Even if it were only Taeil, it would be worth it. "I— I want to see you," Taeyong said suddenly, looking down to see his hands curling around nothing.

"I know," Taeil breathed. "Me too."

"What if I love you so much," Taeyong said with a grin, "I won’t have enough left for myself?" There was a thump from the lion’s mouth, as if something in the ship fell.

"You’re an idiot," Taeil said after a moment, breathless. "And besides, there’s no limit to the amount of love you have to give."

Taeyong whistled. "Whoa, where’d that come from?"

"It’s just an old Altean wedding vow," Taeil said offhandedly.

Just then, the black lion, which had been solid and still against Taeyong’s back the whole time, jolted, whirring to life for a hot moment and coughing out a roar. Taeyong jumped up, but then the lion fell down again, lifeless as before. That was weird. Taeyong settled down next to it, digesting Taeil’s response. "… Altean?"

"Taeyong, your lion!" Taeil gasped suddenly. "It just sent out a signal! It’s weak, but it got here. I know where you are— I have it on the radar, I’m headed there _right now_ —"

"Wait, Taeil, you’re— what’s Altean?" Taeyong said, scrambling up to his feet even though Taeil still couldn’t see him. "Isn’t that a planet? Are you from Altea? Taeil—"

But Taeil had already shut the communication down in preparation for the wormhole.

—

As soon as the ramp started easing down, Taeil’s eyes peeped over the top of it and he clambered over the moving piece and leapt out toward Taeyong in a movement both clumsy and endearing. "Taeyong," Taeil breathed as Taeyong caught him, toppling backward a bit because he wasn’t strong enough for the force of Taeil’s whole being— his body and all the weight of his affection— to hit him all at once. "I’m so glad you’re okay."

"It’s fine, I’m fine," Taeyong said with a little awkward laugh. "You can’t get rid of me that easily."

Taeil pulled away and looked up at him. The depth of his gaze felt serious and also fleeting, like he didn’t want to repeat himself. Like he was inviting you inside and closing the doors behind you. "Taeyong, you know I care about you, right?"

And then it just spilled out. Taeyong wanted in. "I’m in love with you," Taeyong said suddenly into the space between them. Confessing was like was throwing your heart at the ground and waiting to see if someone would pick it up, and in that moment when nothing was moving, there was this fear that it would just end up lying there forever.

At a point so low in your sense of self, pity would’ve been better than utter rejection. But Taeil never did anything out of pity, maybe because he didn’t seem to know how. In being unlike them, Taeil was more honest. He emoted with his entire being without anything to gain or lose. That was why being around Taeil was like flying. Taeil’s lips broke into a wide smile and he leaned up on his toes and nipped at Taeyong’s upper lip. Taeyong started, tensing as all the blood in him rushed south, tingles running through his entire body. It was so alluring, the way Taeil wrapped his arms around Taeyong’s shoulders and crushed Taeyong’s body to him for a moment, kissing him hard before pulling away. It was unfamiliar, letting every reaction exist so uninhibited. Taeil always seemed to be a step ahead of him, not initiating often, but when he did, he was deft and sure in his actions.

"We should get you cleaned up," Taeil said with a laugh, staring right at Taeyong challengingly but moving toward the black lion, who let out a little robotic grunt in response. He ended up dragging it onto the ship like a sack of potatoes, hoisting its back leg up over his shoulder. Taeyong could almost feel the lion groaning in protest as Taeil heaved it up the ramp and into the hangar, motioning for Taeyong to hurry up. And Taeyong’s legs felt wobbly like in the few minutes or hours he’d been stuck there they’d forgotten how to carry him. 

It took a moment to adjust to the darkness as the ramp clicked shut behind them. And in that time that passed Taeil was suddenly there, stumbling, backing him up against the wall and kissing everywhere on his face, his jaw, his nose, the corner of his mouth.

"Taeil," Taeyong said, holding Taeil’s arms as Taeil clutched his shoulders hard. " _Taeil_ , Taeil, slow down."

Taeil pulled away and looked down for a moment, seemingly embarrassed as if his brain had just started to catch up with his movements. "I’m sorry, I—" he said, breathing down into Taeyong’s shirt collar. "Mark and Ten are still in the pods, and Doyoung and Jaehyun— well."

"It’s just the two of us here," Taeyong finished in realization, and Taeil nodded as he looked back up at Taeyong, his eyes twinkling faintly. 

And then Taeil pulled away again just like that, bowing out of Taeyong’s hold and grinning as he slipped through the corridors. It was a long, stiff walk to Taeil’s room, Taeyong right on his heel and watching Taeil's smock billow behind him, clean and white like curtains. He was beautiful. 

"How long will they be in the healing pods for," Taeyong breathed as Taeil dragged him into his room and Taeyong made sure to watch the door close and lock behind him.

Taeil giggled. "Who cares," he said, reaching up to kiss Taeyong again, carding his fingers through Taeyong’s hair and playing with the hairs at Taeyong’s nape, sending little shocks right down his spine. The effect Taeil had on him was almost surreal: the way he dragged him around and clutched at him like he _wanted_ while Taeyong’s hands could only find rest on Taeil’s waist stupidly, pressing pathetic dents into his shirt. The small spots Taeyong left on Taeil’s skin were insignificant in comparison. 

Taeil backed into the bed and pulled Taeyong by his shirt on top of him, throwing his garment up over his head, leaving him in a thin, long-sleeved tee and tight legging-type things that wrapped around his thighs. Taeyong stared, kneeling between Taeil’s legs. All of a sudden every movement of Taeil’s body felt mapped out and outlined in marker. The dark nylon fabric was coy like a gatekeeper, and Taeyong let his fingers absently brush the insides of Taeil’s thighs.

" _Taeyong_ ," Taeil whined in the middle of breathing out, shuddering as Taeyong grabbed Taeil’s legs more firmly this time and kneaded them under the stretchy material. Taeil lied back as Taeyong climbed gingerly over him. The fabric made it so unsatisfying, slipping from Taeyong’s grip way too quickly. Now that he’d felt, he wanted it all.

Taeyong growled in frustration as Taeil’s legs shook and Taeil bucked up into his hands. "Take them off," Taeyong said suddenly, and Taeil gasped, looking right at Taeyong with wide, hungry eyes as Taeyong sat back and indulged in the show. 

Taeil’s bare legs were smooth and soft, long shallow dimples forming when he flexed his muscles, and he wasn’t wearing underwear underneath. Taeyong dipped between Taeil’s legs and kicked the leggings off the bed, pushing Taeil back and then running his hands up and down Taeil’s legs. His grip was hard enough for white spots under his fingers to start blooming. But Taeil seemed to like it, Taeyong’s sudden wave of desperation. Taeil liked a dialogue, when they took and gave in equal parts. Taeil gasped and scrabbled at Taeyong, pulling him down for another filthy kiss and opening right up with a loud moan when Taeyong prodded at his lips with his tongue insistently. 

"Taeyong," Taeil murmured through kisses as they missed each others’ lips purposely, ghosting over their cheeks and the corners of their mouths. Taeyong’s name on Taeil’s lips sounded like butter, creamy and thick with a little hint of sweetness as if churned to a sort of sticky consistency, and he kept saying it over and over as Taeyong rutted against him, his crotch rubbing against Taeil’s ass. "Taeyong, fuck me," Taeil whispered against Taeyong’s ear, bucking up as Taeyong’s hands moved up to his hips.

"Are you sure?" Taeyong choked out, pulling back and staring down at Taeil splayed out under him, a thin sheen of sweat spread across his skin.

Taeil turned his head to the side, his skin flushed across his face all the way to his ears. "I don’t want to hurt you," he said, seeming a little embarrassed.

In all seriousness, Taeyong couldn’t argue with that. He, too, did not want to end up breaking through the bed and the floors of the castle. Naked. He brushed Taeil’s hair back and kissed his temple lightly. "But it might hurt for you," he murmured.

"I’m fine, I’m strong," Taeil said, grinning back up at Taeyong. "You’re not." 

"Hey!" Taeyong protested with a lopsided smile, hitting Taeil’s shoulder lightly.

Taeil pulled him back down for a kiss, Taeyong falling forward with his hands out next to Taeil’s head. "Do you— have lubrication…?" 

"Um," said Taeyong against Taeil’s mouth, and Taeil giggled.

"Actually, I think I know someone who has… lubrication."

Taeyong sat back up and glanced around for a second before realizing. " _Oh_."

And two minutes later, Taeyong was snooping around half-naked in Jaehyun and Doyoung’s room, goosebumps dotting his arms and shoulders. Turns out Jaehyun had small travel-sized bottles of lube hidden just about everywhere because he was a fuckboy, and since the room was a mess, everywhere meant… literally _everywhere_. He probably wouldn’t miss the one stuffed in the front pocket of his hoodie that he always wore under that jacket anyway. 

When Taeyong got back to Taeil’s room, Taeil had taken off his shirt too and was half under the sheets with his legs pulled up to his chest. The arch in his spine left pretty ridges underneath his skin, and Taeyong reached out to trace them. "Come here," Taeil said, twisting his head around to kiss Taeyong slow and gentle on the mouth. 

Taeil was erotic in showing Taeyong how he wanted to be handled: he made precise movements to guide Taeyong’s hands between his legs as if saying _this much, no more, no less_ , and if there was anything Taeyong was good at, it was using his hands to carry out a request. 

Taeil tensed and instinctively flinched away when Taeyong touched the back of his legs with his fingers, cold and slippery with lube. "Sorry," Taeil said sheepishly and eased back, looking down.

"Are you sure you’re okay?" Taeyong whispered through clenched teeth, because he didn’t know how long he could last with Taeil spread out like this for him, naked and holding his own legs apart.

Taeil laughed breathily and Taeyong nearly bit his tongue off at the sound. "I— I don’t know if I can last," he said, and Taeyong groaned, leaning his forehead against Taeil’s. Taeil pecked the corner of Taeyong’s mouth in response and breathed hot into his ear, "but I want to come with _something_ inside me."

" _Fuck_ ," Taeyong whispered, spreading Taeil’s ass cheeks out with his hand and teasing the rim of Taeil’s entrance with his trembling index finger, watching Taeil’s face for his reactions. Taeil’s breathing sped up and he tilted his head back, biting his lower lip in anticipation, and Taeyong couldn’t resist latching onto Taeil’s neck as he pushed the tip of his finger in. 

Taeil let out a muffled sound, and Taeyong hovered over him, breathing hard through his nose and trying not to come. "Please don’t stop," Taeil breathed, rushed out and all at once and Taeyong almost whimpered, nodding and slowly easing his finger inside as Taeil let out soft whines that went straight to Taeyong’s dick, which was twitching insistently against Taeil’s thigh. 

"You okay?" Taeyong said.

Taeil let out a, "Mmmph," in reply, then said, "more, more," as if knowing exactly how turned on Taeyong was by how desperate Taeil was for it.

When Taeyong leaned over Taeil, his dick fell forward and brushed against Taeil’s which was straight up against his torso and they both groaned. Taeyong pulled his finger out halfway before adding another next to it slowly, the lube warming up inside Taeil and easing the stretch. Taeil gasped out an, "Oh _god_ ," and arched his back over the mattress, his thighs trembling as he struggled to keep them apart. "Taeyong, I don’t think I can—" he started, whining when Taeyong bottomed out both fingers.

"It’s okay, me neither," Taeyong said, laughing lightly and kissing Taeil, and Taeil sucked Taeyong's tongue greedily into his mouth, hot and slick.

Taeil shifted, letting go of his shaking legs and wrapping them around Taeyong’s waist. His hands, free, groped around blindly and found Taeyong’s dick and lined it up with his own, and Taeyong yelled and bit into Taeil’s shoulder at the friction and the unexpected tug of Taeil’s hands, jerking them both off sloppily as drool ran down their chins and their tongues tangled in each others’ and twisted together without mercy. 

Taeyong fucked harder into Taeil’s heat with his fingers and Taeil seemed to like it, moaning high and loud into Taeyong’s mouth. When he pushed all the way in and twisted and pressed Taeil back into the bed, he felt something inside Taeil that made Taeil pull his face away and scream, coming against their stomachs and pressing his thighs hard against Taeyong’s hips. Taeyong muffled his groan into Taeil’s shoulder, joining his hand with Taeil’s to jerk himself to completion as Taeil shook with his orgasm and dug his nails into the sheets.

Taeyong was struggling to keep himself up as Taeil’s breathing evened out. "Sorry, I…," Taeil said, trailing off and watching Taeyong with fond eyes, teary with how intensely he came.

"I like it," Taeyong said, still a little out of breath, and grinned at Taeil, wiping the corners of his eyes. "How sensitive you are."

Taeil closed his eyes and turned his head away but still had a gentle smile on his face. "It’s been a while." 

Taeyong heaved himself up into a sitting position, his muscles suddenly all sore. "We should get cleaned up and then get Doyoung and Jaehyun."

Taeil coughed. "Okay, but you’re operating the communicator."

"Fine," Taeyong said, petting Taeil’s forehead.

Taeil blew Taeyong in the shower and Taeyong, legs still shaky, had to lean against the wall to keep from collapsing. All the while, Taeyong, in a low voice between gasps for breath, told Taeil how he wanted to fuck him for real next time and come inside him, and Taeil came just from that, moaning around Taeyong’s dick as his come mixed with the shower water and dribbled down Taeil’s lips and chin. 

And when Taeyong came out of the shower a little later drying off his hair with a small towel, Taeil had fallen asleep on top of the comforter again. And Taeyong pulled it out from under him and tucked it under his chin, listening for a moment to his soft snoring.

Doyoung and Jaehyun wouldn’t look at each other as they walked sullenly onto the ship. Yet they still somehow managed to both look like the epitome of someone who just got laid. 

Taeil ended up sleeping for three days. And Taeyong didn’t want to disturb him with his restlessness, so he took up residence in Ten and Mark’s room for one night and Doyoung and Jaehyun’s for the next, just to make it fair. 

"So, hotshot, you finally decided what we’re going to do next?" Doyoung said. It was night again, though not nearly as late as last time, and Taeyong was on the floor again. It was hard to believe it had only been a few days since he’d first slept here. It felt like a different time. A different life, maybe. By the time he was old enough to look back on this, it probably _would_ feel like a turning point. Time went faster when life had meaning, and life had meaning when you had something to wake up for the next day, even if it wasn’t yourself. Never would Taeyong have imagined he’d be living for another person, much less someone who’d been sent to him at a point where two lines in the universe that had once started out hundreds of thousands of lightyears away finally converged. He could make a compromise with fate: maybe it just worked with what it had and waited for him to respond. They worked together, alongside one another.

"Yeah, actually, I have," Taeyong said, hands behind his head. He studied the boxy, circuit-like patterns on the ceiling. "Tell me everything you know about a planet called Altea."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was not supposed to end up this long! Or be written this soon! Also the porn part was completely unnecessary and self-indulgent, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway because I really wanted to write it for some reason! As I said, the 2nd chapter is Dojae side-story which is mainly pwp. Thank you for reading (:


	2. dojae spinoff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- This is mostly PWP.  
> \- It takes place when Doyoung and Jaehyun blast off into space together.

Doyoung was cold, but he wasn’t soulless. It was still a minor victory that the first thing he thought to do as the red lion skidded to a bumpy landing on the planet’s surface was go find Jaehyun and thank him, even if his rescue attempt was useless and badly planned. 

The red lion let Doyoung out of its mouth and looked a little apologetic as it backed away into the foliage, easing into a loaf-like position and dimming its eyes to recharge. "Thanks to you, too," Doyoung said begrudgingly, because even though it was more or less inanimate, it was still what actually ended up saving him from the worst of the blast.

This planet’s atmosphere was warm and smelled faintly like nettle and wine. They landed in some kind of forest where the plants grew burnt warm colors, kind of greyed out by a weird sepia tone that was like a hazy summer afternoon. The sky was an airy orange too like everything else, and Jaehyun’s lion was sitting upright not too far away as if surveying the area. When Doyoung trudged up to it and climbed into the cockpit wordlessly, the lion let him in.

Taeyong was correct in assuming there was history between Doyoung and Jaehyun. He must’ve at least picked up on this much with the way he let them be when they started arguing and didn’t bother trying to intervene or defend Doyoung, whom he was closer with. Which was good, because if there was one thing worse than pity, it was being blindly stuck up for when even you knew you were wrong. 

And Taeyong was also correct in not trying to pry into the details of it otherwise Doyoung might’ve ended up chewing his head off, which frankly, Taeyong didn’t deserve. 

So Doyoung was going to thank Jaehyun. He was going to say, "Thank you for trying to save me," without any malice or pretenses and then they’d brainstorm a way out of here. Doyoung had his fists clenched in resolution, but when Jaehyun appeared in front of him as if waiting for him, all the words seemed to evaporate in his throat.

It’d been one time Doyoung had gotten drunk. _One time_. There was no word that better fit the reckless irrelevance of youth than pure stupidity. He was young and stupid, really fucking stupid. And too eager to fit in. He'd been out partying with some weird science groupies in a town nearby when suddenly all the upperclassmen labmates abandoned him in his drunken stupor. And Jaehyun happened to be out partying too like a normal person and had the decency to walk Doyoung all the way back to the campus without laying a finger on him other than to hold him upright when he nearly toppled down a cliff.

They’d run from the hall monitors and resident assistants, laughing and stumbling through the hallways and into the courtyard, which was mostly various sized rocks and graffiti students had carved on there in the past. Doyoung, as a prefect, had an ID card with access to all the dorms, though they ended up in Doyoung’s room through one of the underground maintenance passageways anyway. If Jaehyun had made any sort of advance on Doyoung, Doyoung was not having it. Instead, he proceeded to burrow into his bed like a mole rat and drunkenly bawl about how the academy had sent his older brother on a rescue mission six years ago and he was still missing now and that was why he was here stuck in the extraterrestrial substances curriculum and wasting his life away under some paranoid assumption he wasn’t good enough to fly. Jaehyun may or may not have been listening to every word, but Doyoung wouldn’t know, because he resolved never to have to face Jaehyun again after that night.

Unfortunately, Jaehyun seemed set on running into Doyoung at every intersection. It was almost like Jaehyun was seeking him out personally. And that was terrifying.

There were a lot of Bad Things About Jaehyun. He was exactly the type of person who would stage some petty war against Doyoung for no fucking reason whatsoever. He was the type of person your parents warned you about on the street, the kind of kid who gave you a wedgie and flipped you upside-down for your lunch money, except he was rich and didn’t have a motorcycle and was valedictorian of his class. But that made him even more dangerous, because he could get other things from you instead, bigger than lunch money, things like your trust or your heart.

Except he didn’t. Sure, he tried, but not that hard. Even his friends hated Doyoung, but Jaehyun never listened to them. He _had_ brought Doyoung back from that bar when no one was watching and took care of him the entire night. That was Doyoung at his worst, and Jaehyun stuck around. 

Jaehyun was sitting in his pilot’s seat and leaning on his elbow with his legs crossed and head tilted expectantly, and his eyes were shadowed with a look both sad and menacing. Okay, so Jaehyun was mad about something. This was when Doyoung realized he’d never witnessed it before, Jaehyun having multiple sides to his personality. And it made him seem more real.

A person usually went in two directions: across, and down. The across way, that was having your emotions. That was reacting to things, doing something unexpected; each behavior was like a newly uncovered square in your personality playing board. The downward way, well, that was the depth. The depth came in layers, and all your flat-across squares were scattered through the layers like a giant stack of paper. 

The people with a lot of layers, those were the people to watch out for. They usually only displayed a small range of emotions on the outermost layer, and then you had to peel away some to unlock more. Getting to know them was like a game that reset periodically and at random intervals. And those kinds of people thought you had the time for it and the interest to humor them in their little self-absorbed world. It took so much energy just to get to know them. Doyoung didn’t have the fucking time for it.

Jaehyun was a person with a lot of layers, because he was only ever really this vague semblance of "happy" whenever you saw him. He seemed pleasant and courteous and a bit of a tease, and not worth an ounce of Doyoung’s time. 

The more layers someone had, the less emotions they showed. Jaehyun being visibly pissed off now made Doyoung wonder if he wasn’t all as guarded as Doyoung made him out to be, or if Doyoung had somehow unwittingly peeled away Jaehyun’s outermost face. 

When you were angry, you were vulnerable. That was closer to the core of you. And now Jaehyun was angry, and it was kind of thrilling and kind of beautiful.

There were two options: Doyoung could either speak, or move. Of course there was the unsaid option of not doing anything at all, but when had waiting ever made anything better? 

He could speak, but there was nothing to say; he was supposed to be thanking him, but Jaehyun looked like he didn’t want it. To be angry at someone, you had to be impassioned. You had to care. Doyoung didn’t know how much confirmation he needed that Jaehyun cared, but this seemed like the nail on the coffin. Maybe this was what it was supposed to feel like, putting your heart out there for someone when you weren’t even sure if they wanted it anymore. But this was living— this was the opposite of wasting away under a cage of paranoia. In wanting more, he’d allowed himself less, and now he was here at this crossroads, already a pilot without anyone’s real approval because when life hit you just right, you didn’t really need it.

Maybe anger would push other people away, but to Doyoung, Jaehyun’s outermost layer _was_ that he had multiple layers, and this was just his way of inviting you in. And Doyoung was finally letting himself take the bait.

He would absolutely regret this later. But that was what encounters with Jaehyun seemed to be defined by: the anticipation of regret, and somewhere in there realizing that being with a person, and letting them be with you, wasn’t actually so bad after all.

Doyoung settled onto Jaehyun’s raised knee, and before he could chicken out, he took Jaehyun’s face in his hands and kissed him.

It was hard both to stay and to pull away— Jaehyun was stiff and surprised but he smelled all musky like they were still on earth. 

Doyoung stopped then for a split moment, but just like all other times when Doyoung wanted nothing more than to just forget and avoid, Jaehyun didn’t let him. Jaehyun chased after him, bringing his hand up to Doyoung’s face and tilting it to slot their lips together, and Doyoung let him. 

Jaehyun, relaxing, brought something satisfied and playful with him, smiling into the kiss and trying to coax Doyoung’s lips open by nipping and pushing with his own lips. Doyoung begrudgingly followed with a sound of discontent, but it just came out sounding whiney, which made Jaehyun shift him into his lap proper so that he was basically sitting on Jaehyun’s dick. And he hated that it was half hard already. And he hated that he loved it. 

"Are you just hormonal or do you need to get laid that badly," Doyoung mumbled, and Jaehyun grinned, catching his lower lip again and biting it. 

"Maybe a bit of both?" he said.

Doyoung sighed, hiding a groan in there somewhere when Jaehyun slid his hands down Doyoung’s sides. "Go beat off or something, god," he said and slipped off his jacket and let it fall to the floor at Jaehyun’s feet.

"I’ve been refraining," Jaehyun said, easing his torso closer to Doyoung’s. His hands couldn’t seem to stop wandering like he wanted to become familiar with every inch of Doyoung’s body in thirty seconds. He skimmed the lines and lingered in all the dips and seemed to delight in making Doyoung squirm. "Doing it with you in the room seemed too obvious."

"You’re an idiot," Doyoung breathed while taking off his shirt because it was getting too hot, but then he was greeted by the sight of a distracted Jaehyun raking his gaze down Doyoung’s body. Doyoung decided kissing him might make him stop, but he still had his hands which were busy dipping under the waistband of Doyoung’s boxers and tracing the curve of his hipbones. "Your shirt too, perv," complained Doyoung against Jaehyun’s lips. He tugged Jaehyun’s shirt over his head and pressed his hands down onto Jaehyun’s skin, which was surprisingly soft and gave wherever he touched. The kid had muscles hidden under a soft layer of skin that kinda bunched up when he was curled under Doyoung like this. Staring at Jaehyun’s skin distracted him from locking his elbows and covering himself up as Jaehyun inspected him too, surprisingly slow and gentle for how turned on they were. 

It wouldn’t be the first time Jaehyun seemed to veer off the path of every one of Doyoung’s expectations. Maybe because Doyoung expected so much, or so lowly, of him, he’d unintentionally set Jaehyun up for certain success.

At first Doyoung had thought Jaehyun was taunting him with all the unsolicited advances, which would’ve been mighty low even for a guy like Jaehyun. So Doyoung ignored him, but Jaehyun pressed on. He never laughed when he got a rise out of Doyoung, just followed what Doyoung said wordlessly, sometimes with a fond, satisfied smile to himself as if he’d accomplished something and no one else really understood what it was. And that was a heck of a lot of effort for someone who seemed to enjoy having an easy life. 

Doyoung let Jaehyun sit next to him in class, thinking that he’d leave at some point if Doyoung disappointed him with zero interest over and over. Of course, Jaehyun never left. He kept to himself and sometimes looked like he was texting his friends, but he was actually competing in the leaderboards of some weird puzzle game that looked like it involved a lot of mental math and logic. So he was a nerd. That was kind of cute.

After that, Doyoung discovered that Jaehyun, who looked happy-go-lucky without much of a care or attachment in the world, _was_ impassioned about something. And that something happened to be Doyoung himself. He’d missed prom, followed Doyoung into deep space, and literally risked his life to save Doyoung, even if the attempt was rash and botched. And if Doyoung let himself go down that path, there was a 100% chance he’d fall in love. 

"Pants off babe," Jaehyun said, his voice a low rumble.

"Call me babe again and I’m biting your dick off," replied Doyoung, kicking off his jeans anyway and feeling suddenly very exposed in front of Jaehyun who seemed to be enjoying the view.

"So you do want to blow me," Jaehyun said, palming Doyoung through his boxers and Doyoung half-yelped half-moaned and grabbed Jaehyun’s wrist, holding him there a little distance away from slipping inside the front hole.

Doyoung waited for his breathing to even out as Jaehyun looked up at him imploringly, his hand twitching every so often. "Don’t," Doyoung said, "or I’ll come too soon."

"I thought that was the point?" said Jaehyun, laughing against Doyoung’s neck.

Doyoung let go of Jaehyun’s hand and wound his fingers behind Jaehyun's neck, running them through his little soft hairs there and grinding down on Jaehyun’s crotch experimentally. The noise Jaehyun made in response was nothing short of feral and completely indecent. "I want to come while riding your dick," Doyoung said in the most even voice he could manage. Jaehyun growled and lurched forward to take Doyoung’s lips again and gripped his hips hard enough to bruise for a hot moment before sliding Doyoung’s boxers down none too gently. 

When Jaehyun reached back into his jacket pocket, the weird inside pocket lining the outer pockets, Doyoung took the opportunity to mouth at Jaehyun’s neck, which was pale and smooth and had a few moles dotting the back of it like stars when the light from the surrounding cities was too bright. He was also highly aware of the fact that Jaehyun did _not_ own any turtlenecks or scarves, and a pale, broad neck like his needed to be marked.

Doyoung felt sensitive to every movement of Jaehyun’s dick reacting to Doyoung’s licking and sucking and biting. "Be gentle," Doyoung said, watching Jaehyun uncap the lube.

"Not with you talking like that," Jaehyun replied.

"I literally told you to be gentle, what else am I supposed to say?" Doyoung snapped, tensing and moving away when Jaehyun hovered his fingers near Doyoung’s entrance.

"It’s hot knowing I’m your first," said Jaehyun with a grin that was just as cocky as he was, but it was cute in a way, too, the whole dimples and puffy cheeks aesthetic. 

"You are so full of yourself," Doyoung sighed, leaning down to kiss Jaehyun as Jaehyun tried once again, just teasing around Doyoung’s rim this time and groping at Doyoung’s (admittedly bony) ass with lube-free hands. He kissed Doyoung back sweetly, sucking and pulling at his lips in a way that was sultry and slow and warm and soon had Doyoung grinding down on Jaehyun’s dick or pushing against his fingers again, but Jaehyun teased him almost expertly, wanting to draw a reaction out of Doyoung. "You’re the worst," Doyoung mumbled against the corner of Jaehyun’s jaw, and he could feel Jaehyun pull his lips back into another smile.

"I’m being gentle," Jaehyun said, and he was right, because the only thing that startled Doyoung this time was how _cold_ it was against his skin. He shied away again and toward Jaehyun’s bare chest instinctively, where the warmth was. And Jaehyun held Doyoung against him tight and rubbed soothing circles into his lower back. "You okay?"

Doyoung just whimpered and nodded in response as Jaehyun thrusted shallowly, going a bit deeper each time. "More," Doyoung demanded quietly, clutching Jaehyun’s shoulders for support.

"Okay, but breathe first," said Jaehyun. Doyoung didn’t even notice he’d been holding his breath until now. Letting it out as Jaehyun pressed in felt weird, like walking against the current, but it was also nice and made the stretch hurt less. 

Jaehyun seemed to be satisfied after Doyoung completed a few deep breaths, his shoulders rising and falling rhythmically again, and rewarded him with another finger prodding in little scissoring motions against his ass. Doyoung flat out moaned this time, especially when Jaehyun’s hand snaked between them and ghosted around Doyoung’s dick. It was hot, what Jaehyun was doing for him even though Jaehyun was rock hard himself, taking the time to pleasure and pamper Doyoung just like Doyoung secretly liked but had too much pride to admit himself. Jaehyun was strong, probably physically stronger than Doyoung but still wrapped around him in a way, like he let himself answer to Doyoung’s beck and call and even enjoyed watching for how Doyoung reacted. 

"You take three fingers nicely," Jaehyun rasped, and Doyoung muffled a sob into his shoulder. 

"God, keep going," Doyoung said, reaching down to fist his own dick as Jaehyun held him upright with his other hand. Jaehyun took a moment to switch hands and jerk himself off with his other hand. "I’ll do it," Doyoung said.

"No, I’ll come," Jaehyun said, laughing breathlessly, and Doyoung kissed him sloppily and giggled into his mouth. Jaehyun’s left hand was jerky in his ass and pushed in a little too hard sometimes, hovering dangerously near Doyoung’s prostate. Doyoung held Jaehyun’s wrist down and rocked back against it instead, and Jaehyun groaned and sucked Doyoung’s tongue into his mouth. 

"I’m ready, I’m ready," Doyoung breathed, still fucking himself on Jaehyun’s fingers. 

"Hold still," said Jaehyun. It came out like a growl and Doyoung shivered, obeying. Jaehyun guided his dick into Doyoung who forced himself to breathe to an imaginary rhythm again as he lowered himself. He must not have gotten a good look at Jaehyun’s dick before sitting on it because it just kept _going_.

"Oh my god," Doyoung said. "God, fuck."

Jaehyun seemed concentrated but pushed Doyoung’s fringe up from his forehead anyway and brushed his fingers through Doyoung’s hair, a little sweaty and tangled and matted to his head. "Don’t try anything," groaned Jaehyun, and Doyoung laughed and kissed Jaehyun’s palm lightly over and over until Jaehyun was all the way in. 

The stretch felt weirdly good. Like, just a little pain that was mostly overwhelmed by the weird way just _thinking_ about Jaehyun fucking his ass made him feel hot and trembly all over.

Doyoung tried rolling his hips into Jaehyun first because it seemed a little less overwhelming than vertical… fucking. Jaehyun slid out of him a little and then back in slowly as Doyoung shifted around in his lap. And after a little while it started feeling good, like it wasn't enough. So he flexed his thighs and lifted himself up halfway and lowered again, watching Jaehyun carefully. 

Jaehyun was staring back at him under his straight brow and shadowed eyes, his lips parted and letting out shallow, labored breaths. Doyoung was still breathing to the same tempo he’d set earlier, and he rose up again, farther this time until Jaehyun almost slipped out, and then let himself back down, going at a slow pace and concentrating on Jaehyun’s death grip on the backs of his thighs. He seemed to want to lift Doyoung and fuck into him himself but was holding himself back. 

"It’s okay," Doyoung said, rocking up and down purposely slow now on Jaehyun’s lap, his thighs shaking with exertion. "You can fuck me."

" _God_ ," Jaehyun growled. He grabbed Doyoung’s dick and started pumping it and playing with the tip, and Doyoung bucked forward into his hand in response. Jaehyun pushed him back down, and soon Doyoung was bouncing in his lap in earnest, Jaehyun bucking up to meet him halfway. And Doyoung arched his back with little whines from the back of his throat and made room for Jaehyun’s hand between them while their shoulders still touched and he still had full access to Jaehyun’s mouth and neck.

Jaehyun opened up for him and their tongues met all wet and sloppy, drool running down Doyoung’s chin. He could feel the vibrations from his own shamelessly loud moans which punctuated every time Jaehyun bottomed out inside him.

Doyoung’s legs started trembling as he approached his orgasm and he involuntarily tensed and clenched around Jaehyun as Jaehyun kept fucking up into him, chasing his own release. "Jae, Jae, I’m coming," Doyoung breathed shakily, and Jaehyun only pushed up harder into him and worked his dick without rest. "Oh god, _Jaehyun_ , I’m—" and Doyoung cut himself off into a drawn-out, tight-lipped moan as his whole body spasmed when he came all over Jaehyun’s hand. 

And Jaehyun fucked him through it, slipping out right before he came against Doyoung’s ass, moaning unabashedly as he did. 

Doyoung slumped against Jaehyun, whose chest was sweaty and sticky and visibly rising and falling with his harsh breathing. And he kissed it, right under Jaehyun’s collarbone. Jaehyun laughed once, sounding almost both wry and gently amused that Doyoung finally showed him some gratuitous physical affection. "So should we talk?" he said while petting Doyoung’s hair.

"No," Doyoung mumbled with his cheek and half his mouth smushed against Jaehyun. "I don’t like talking."

"You were pretty mouthy a bit ago," Jaehyun said smartly, and Doyoung tried to kick him but it just ended up feeling like a mistimed twitch instead. "I think we should talk."

"Later," Doyoung conceded.

After a while, Jaehyun said in an uncharicteristically small voice that was simultaneously annoying and pitiful, "I thought you hated me."

Doyoung closed his eyes and pressed them into the crook of Jaehyun’s neck, which was soothingly warm. He didn’t hate Jaehyun. Not like this, not when he was sweet and caring and cocky and uncontrolled and all the weird little sides of himself at once. In fact, he maybe loved Jaehyun like this, which was why ever since they’d stumbled onto this ship and into space together, the spiral had been swift and without mercy. Doyoung was in love with him. He mumbled, "I don’t hate you. I hate your way of living."

The warmth over his nose bridge made the oncoming headache feel a bit better. Jaehyun was like his own personal little hot pack. "I'll change," Jaehyun said. Heaven knows he was good at that.

And then Doyoung said something that even surprised himself. "Don’t."

—

Jaehyun suggested taking a romantic walk around the surrounding forest while they waited for communication from the castle, and Doyoung had never vetoed an idea down faster. "Are you sure we haven’t already—" Doyoung started, fiddling with the controls over Jaehyun’s shoulder. "Oh my god."

"What?" Jaehyun said, shuffling into his pants.

Doyoung squinted. "It says here there was initiation of contact about 15 minutes ago."

Jaehyun furrowed his eyebrows. "But that’s when we— oh."

"What do you mean, 'oh'?! You know the controls, does it automatically—" Doyoung yelled, slapping lightly at Jaehyun’s arm.

"Yes," said Jaehyun.

"What does that—"

"It’s exactly what you’re thinking."

"… Oh my _god_."


End file.
